“I hope you’re not planning on making your grand escape again,” I heard Daniel say just before his head poked around the door.
“No, just checking to see if my laptop was charged yet.”
It was, so I disconnected it and climbed back out of the car. After Daniel closed the door behind me and pulled the tarp back in place, he gently patted the roof of his car as if to reassure it that everything would be okay.
“So any sign of my hunter?” I asked, suppressing a smile.
“I didn’t go far, but none that I saw.”
He was staring down at the bandage on my arm.
“Is this bothering you?” I asked holding it up.
“Not really.” but his eyes still seemed fixed on it in a way that made me uncomfortable in my own skin.
As he closed the barn door behind us, I started back towards the house.
“So how long are we going to stay here?” I asked when he caught up to me.
“We’ve decided to stay and make our stand here.”
“That sounds ominous.”
“Well, this is defensible ground. Ironically enough, one of the reasons Randall chose this spot to build was for that very same reason. Of course it was the British he was trying to defend against back then and not some crazed vampire. Anyway, reinforcements should be arriving soon.”
I decided at this point I really didn’t want to know any of the details, so I didn’t inquire further. I stole a glance up just in time to catch his eyes searching for mine. He smiled, or at least tried to smile. I could tell he had a lot weighing heavily on his mind. Was it just about the hunter, or was it something else as well?
As we approached the house, he walked ahead and opened the back door for me as I came up the steps onto the porch. In the kitchen, I silently walked past Randall who was working away at his microscope on the rustic wooden kitchen table. Too engrossed in what he was doing, he didn’t look up as I passed.
Why were they really here? Even with all their revelations, I still couldn’t fathom why all the fuss over me.
Sitting down on the floor in the living room, I opened my laptop on the coffee table and waited for it to come to life. I could hear them talking in the kitchen, but their voices were too low for me to make out the details of their conversation. I had to admit that at the moment Daniel popped his head around the car door, the thought of driving away was exactly what I’d been thinking. I wasn’t going to. I knew I couldn’t get down that crazy driveway fast enough. But really, what was the use? It seemed they’d just find me wherever I went. It was a fantasy really. I just liked to picture the look on Daniel’s face as I left him standing in the dust, staring at the tail lights of his car one more time.
In the closet upstairs, Randall had said I’d just about forgiven Daniel. Was that true? No matter how hard I’d tried, I still couldn’t get the image of him kissing Lucy out of my head. As it stood, I’m not sure he’d explained that away to my satisfaction. What had he said except he’d rebuffed her in the past? He’d inferred that it was Lucy who’d kissed him. Perhaps that was true, but he didn’t exactly push her away, of that I was sure.
When my in-box popped up, I scanned my emails. I didn’t respond to any except one from my mother. She was counting on me coming home for Thanksgiving as my brother had finally confirmed he was coming home this year. There was also an email from Ben. He said he was worried about me, and to please reply so he knew I was alright. I did but didn’t type anything in the email. Thinking about him was too confusing. Truly when I thought about it, I think the smartest thing I could have done all semester was just to ask Ryan out the day I’d first met him. Simple, sweet, uncomplicated, funny Ryan.
Needing to clear my mind, I opened up a game of solitaire and started to play. It was effortless for me to loose myself in intense concentration when I played. Seeking an escape, I gladly turned myself over to a completely logical chain of thoughts, forcefully shoving everything else to the side. It was a pleasant break from the perpetual state of emotional confusion I’d endured over the long stretch of the last few days.
Chapter Nineteen
RANDALL
For the twentieth time, I examined her blood sample through the eyepiece, and for the twentieth time it made no sense. Her body was fighting something but the question was – what?
“It’s only a rash, Randall, why are you so worked up about it? Humans get rashes all the time.”
Daniel was standing behind me on the other side of the kitchen. Though he‘d never admit it, he was too afraid to actually see her red stain under the light of the microscope. I could tell by the tenseness of his stance he could smell it, and that just the thought of what his reaction to seeing her blood might be scared him. It was only natural. It pained me to see, but it was a healthy fear, one that I also hoped might keep them apart.
Getting up, I leaned back against the table and faced him.
“Do you remember when we were living in Atlanta and I was working in the virology lab?”
“Of course.”
“Well, for a while there I was assigned to the level four lab and worked with some pretty nasty stuff.”
“Yes, I remember laughing when I came by one day and I saw you in your biohazard suit. If only your colleagues had known you couldn’t catch the common cold if you’d wanted too.”
I couldn’t help but smile, recalling feeling the same way myself at the time. Sometimes our lives would be so much easier if humans were capable of accepting us. But that would never happen. They weren’t all like Sara, and even she had dubious feelings about us as a race at best.
“While I was there, I did some – unauthorized experiments. I took tissue and blood samples I’d extracted from Sara and tested how far her immune system could be pushed before it would be compromised.”
“Stop beating around the bush, Randall, and get to the point.”
I’d say he was irritated with me, but it was more like exasperated, perhaps to mentally exhausted for anything else.
“I exposed her samples to the nastiest bugs they had. Hemorrhagic fever, Ebola and a few others, and each time, her tissue just – rejected them. Her body is just naturally immune to everything I’ve ever exposed her to. Not just viruses, but also venoms. One time I injected her with the deadliest snake venom I could get my hands, on and she just slept like a baby all night. The next day I tested her blood and there wasn’t a trace of it left in her system.”
Purposefully keeping his voice down so she couldn’t hear, he quietly screamed “I can’t believe you’d do that to her! She’s your granddaughter!”
“And I can’t adequately protect her unless I know everything there is to know about her. – There’s only one experiment I haven’t done. In my opinion, it’s the most important one, but I’ve been too afraid to try it. Knowing the results would certainly change things.”
I watched Daniels face fall as it dawned on him what I meant.
“You mean our venom.”
“Yes. Unfortunately, the only way to find out for sure is not an experiment I’d want to have on my conscience. If I had to guess though, I’d say it was possible she could survive – alive.”
“If she did, if she could survive being bitten and not go through the transformation, her blood would be permanently tainted. No hunter would touch her.”
“In theory, but only if she survived. She could also go through the transformation and cease to have that heart beat you’ve become so attached to.”
He shot me a look.
“Don’t give me that look. I’m pretty attached to it myself.” After a pause, I added “If this was something to consider, you’d have to be the one,” I explained. “I won’t do that to anyone ever again. But you, you can’t even look at her under a microscope. I don’t know that you’d be able to bite and release no matter how much you loved her. You don’t know what human blood is like, which is a good thing, but you can’t understand how much power it can have over us if we allow it too.
; “And Sara, well, she wouldn’t be like taking a swig of just any old human’s blood. Once you get her inside you – it would be more powerful than you could possibly imagine.”
I think needing time to consider my words, he walked over to look out the back window. In the meantime, I went back to making notes on her sample.
It still bothered me that something was wrong with her. If I didn’t figure out what it was, there was no way to even consider this last thought we’d had together. If her immune system was compromised enough to cause a rash, she would never survive a vampire bite unscathed.
Daniel stared out the window for a few minutes, then turned and leaned against the wall watching me.
“So you’ve been keeping close tabs on Sara and her mother. You never mentioned her brother.”
“Roger? Yes, Roger is a pure as well. I mean, he is one of my descendants so he was always going to be, but he’s not half as pure as Sara, and even less pure than Vivy. From what I’ve been able to observe over the years, it seems women tend to have a higher percentage of genetic purity than men, at least in my family. It’s not a hard and fast rule, but it’s true more often than not. Roger would certainly attract a blood hunter, but he wouldn’t put them into a frenzy like Sara or even Vivy would. Because of that I haven’t devoted half as much time to studying him as I have her. – Now, his daughter, that’s another story.”
I rubbed my eyes trying to clear away the gloomy thoughts about my little Sara when I heard the familiar tone of her mind coming from the living room. As I turned back to my microscope, I chuckled.
“What are you laughing at?” Daniel asked, shooting me another dirty look.
“Her,” I pointed over my shoulder towards the living room. “I love it when she does this.”
He followed my indication to see her working on her computer, her face tightened with intense concentration.
“What’s she doing?”
“Solitaire.”
“A computer game?” he asked, his tone incredulous.
“I wish you could hear her like I can just for a minute. She is so single minded sometimes, it’s amazing to hear. She’s pretty relaxed about most things, but she hates to lose at solitaire. She’s very good at it and rarely does. She’s able to think of multitudes of permutations all at once and quickly problem solve to her next best move. For an overly emotional female, she has an amazing capacity for logical thinking – when she wants to. Anyway, I enjoy listening to her like this.”
“That’s a little weird, Randall, and more than a little creepy,” he said as he walked into the living room. He came to a stop behind her and peered over her shoulder as he began to watch her play.
I could feel him break her concentration as she fought the urge to acknowledge his presence. She was in so much pain and trying so hard to hide it for the both of us. I didn’t have to be able to read Daniel’s mind to see that he had the same problem. I had been trying to protect them both, but in the end I wasn’t sure I hadn’t done more harm than good.
I sighed. Some habits are hard to break I guess.
I still didn’t want them to be together, but wasn’t sure what choice I had in the matter now. Looking at them together, I realized it was only a matter of time before pride fell. As far as I could tell, it was the only thing keeping them apart now. But, there was always plan B.
I put away my notes and organized the table. There were so many things I wanted to tell her, but I still felt it was in her best interests to keep her in the dark. She was already in so much pain and what I had to share would only increase her unhappiness. Of all the things that raced through my mind, the one that nagged at me the most was if I should tell her where I’d been these past few weeks. Should I tell her that when I went to check on her mother, that the blood hunter had been there as well? That I’d chased him away a couple of times until he’d finally moved out of the area. It was only a matter of time until he came after Vivy, but what good would it do in warning her about it, there was nothing she or Sara could do if he did.
Too distracted now to play at her best, Sara closed up her computer and stored it away while Daniel pretended not to watch her.
After I finished organizing the table, I went into the living room. I think perhaps it was time to break the two of them up for a while.
“Daniel, keep an eye on things around here. There’s something I want to show Sara.”
She turned towards me. “What is it?”
I opened the front door for her. “You’ll like it. You’re probably the only one who would appreciate it anyway.”
Without questioning me further, she went outside allowing me to follow after her.
We walked down the long driveway in silence. Although her lips remained silent, I could still hear the musings of her mind all too clearly. She was torn between logic and her feelings for Daniel. It was a much greater struggle than I ever would have anticipated. I suppose I’d foolishly hoped she was a bit more like the woman I married than the human man I’d once been. Her feelings ran so deep. It was surprising considering how quickly they’d formed. It pained me to feel, but this wasn’t the first time I’d caused her pain in the name of my love for her, and sadly I doubted it would be the last.
For my part, my attention was equally divided between watching her and listening for any warning of the hunters approach. As unlikely as it was, I was worried he may have slipped back into the area. Yet part of me was brimming with something like joy when I knew it was wrong. After all those years of patient and detached observation, here she was, my little one, talking to me, interacting with me. Somewhere deep inside, even though I knew it was the worst thing in the world for her, I think I’d wished this would happen all along. It was a selfish impulse; something I unfortunately didn’t suffer from a lack of.
She looked lovely today, but then again I always thought she did. Maybe it was the hair. I’d always been something of an old softy for a red head. No, she was just special to me. I loved her like my own, and in my heart she was. Yet for all her soft external loveliness, I knew inside her chest beat the heart of a warrior, who was much better equipped to deal with the darkness than any human I’d ever encountered. Something Daniel had yet to discover about her. Even though she loved him, she was hiding this from him. Not that I could blame her.
She was deep in thought about him even now, questioning everything she ever thought she’d known about him. It broke my heart. I wanted her happy, but I wanted her with someone else. As the shadowy guide I’d always been to her, it was up to me to show her where her true happiness lay.
When we reached the bottom of the driveway, I helped her over the gate. Crossing the street, we started back into the dense woods, making our way through the thick underbrush in silence. I hadn’t been back here for a long time. Things had changed so much, but thankfully the stream was still here to follow. The gentle sound of its trickling waters replacing any conversation between us as we walked along.
The sun had disappeared behind the clouds and it looked as if we were in for some rain this afternoon. I frowned. Heavy rain would make the hunter harder to track.
Shaking off the ominous feeling that had been with me for days, I glanced over my shoulder to see her carefully following behind me. She was still quiet – too quiet. The only sounds around us issued from the stream and the crispness of the leaves as they crunched beneath our feet.
“I’ve been back here before,” she finally said. “I was looking for your grave.” She stopped, realizing what she’d said. With a peculiar smile, she shook her head and continued along. “I didn’t get quite this far back though.”
“We used to call this place Chimney Orchard.” I said, lost in the memories of times spent here as a human. It had been over a century since I’d last retraced these steps and I wasn’t the man I’d been back then anymore. I wasn’t even the same vampire. With the passage of time things continuously change forcing us to evolve whether we want to or not. My many years on this Earth had taught me tha
t time stands still for no one, human and vampire alike. Being a vampire, I was keenly aware of this fact, certainly more so than Sara. These woods around us were evidence of this inescapable fact of life. Nature was not immune; it has its own progress separate from that of the human race that tramples upon it. Trees grow and die like humans. Some fall from age while others are cut down in their prime. Either way, they change like this forest and can become almost unrecognizable over the course of time. I might be lost myself if it weren’t for the rambling stream that guided my way just as it had over two hundred years ago. The stream … me … we were the same in so many ways. We were guides set apart from time.
“Chimney Orchard, I’ve heard that name before. It’s a peculiar name. Where did it come from?”
“I’m not sure. It was old even when I first heard it. I think it may have been a name the Narragansett’s had for this rocky hill. But don’t hold me to that.”
I stopped to help her follow me up and over the remains of a rock wall. On the other side were the stream and a grove of dead spruce trees. Their bare bones combined with a lack of undergrowth gave the eerie appearance of some haunted forest out of a children’s storybook. It was ethereal in the half-light that filtered down through the surrounding trees.
She followed me as I walked away from the stream, past a large boulder and stopped just short of another rock wall.
“Is this it?” she asked, looking around seemingly at nothing. Finally she spotted the rows of field stones poking up through the blanket of leaves and moss.
“Who else is buried here?”
I pointed to a pair of them.
“This is where we buried my parents.” I pointed to the opposite corner. “My grandfather and grandmother Wells are there. And I’m supposed to be there,” I said, turning toward an unmarked spot. “The headstone is gone now, but it was here a few years back I understand. Not sure what happened there.”
The Purity of Blood: Volume I Page 44
