by Ron Ripley
“You would hear it sometimes,” David explained, “from the higher ups. Places would be ‘seeded.’ Certain buildings picked out, people sacrificed there. Sometimes, like with Borgin, they were feeding the living to the dead.”
Frank muttered a curse under his breath and Shane clenched his teeth.
Shane took a deep breath, cleared his throat, and asked, “How many houses are out there?”
“I don’t know,” David answered. “If we can get the alpha file, then we’ll have everything we need.”
“What are the other attachments?” Frank asked.
“Hold on,” David replied. He turned back to the laptop and clicked through the other four attachments. Each one contained another section of the map. Frank got up and he manipulated the images to form a single composite.
A large, comprehensive map, showing all six of the New England States, was revealed. In some spots, there were one or two dots. In others, cities like Boston and Concord, the marks were on top of one another.
There were hundreds of them.
Possibly even a thousand, Shane realized. To Carl he spoke in German, “Make sure someone is watching the house at all times.”
“We have been,” Carl replied.
“Thank you,” Shane said, sighing. “Will you check on everyone for me, please?”
Carl responded with a short bow and vanished from the room.
“Is there a way we can strike at one, maybe two of them while we wait for the file?” Frank asked David.
The older man shook his head. “No, not that I know of. Only a few people knew of those outside of their own area of operations. Borgin had been mine for years. And I didn’t handle any others before it.”
“We may have someone who does know,” Shane said, standing up.
“Who?” Frank and David asked in unison.
“Lisbeth,” Shane answered.
David looked confused and Frank’s face revealed his disappointment.
“When will you let her go, Shane?” Frank asked.
“Soon,” Shane replied.
He just didn’t know when soon would be.
Chapter 8: Ben and Jesse
At thirteen years old, Ben was tall for his age, almost six feet. He was heavier than he should be, according to his doctor, and the high school football coach had already come to the house to talk to him about playing his freshman year.
Jesse, his fraternal twin, was everything Ben was not. Short, thin, and completely lacking in any athletic ability, she preferred to be left alone to read in her room. While people thought her brother was older and already in high school, no one believed Jesse when she said she was in middle school.
She didn’t know if she loved, liked, or hated her brother anymore. When they had been younger, they had been the best of friends.
Most of the time she didn’t bother thinking about him, and when she did, it was with no enjoyment.
Jesse put her bookmark in the newest Richard Matheson book she had checked out from the library and shivered. It had gotten cold in her room. She sat up, searched around for her blanket, and stopped as something strange caught her eye.
A shadow stood in the corner of her room where there shouldn’t have been one.
It seemed to solidify and a young boy stepped forward.
Her heart skipped a beat at the boy’s beauty and her initial surprise and concern at a stranger being in her room vanished.
He smiled at her and she smiled back.
“Good evening to you,” he said, bowing.
“Hi,” Jesse whispered.
“You know,” the boy said, looking around. “it has been quite some time since I traveled out of my own yard. I do believe that I am getting stronger.”
“How does it feel?” Jesse asked in a low voice.
“Good,” the boy replied, nodding. “Quite good.”
She smiled.
“You were reading,” the boy said with a grin.
She nodded.
“Of what is the subject of the book?” His voice was as beautiful as he was.
“Vampires,” she said.
He frowned and asked, “What are vampires?”
Jesse told him everything she knew, and when she finished the boy smiled at her.
In a low voice he said, “There’s a boy in the room next to yours. Is he your brother?”
Jesse nodded.
“You know,” the strange boy whispered. “I believe he is one of these vampires you describe.”
And as the words left the boy’s mouth, Jesse knew it to be true. She felt her eyes widen and she asked, “What should I do?”
“You are a strong girl,” the strange boy confided in her. “I have no doubt you know what to do about this vampire.”
The boy was right.
Jesse knew exactly what to do.
She got out of her bed and walked to her desk. In silence, she flipped her chair over and with a strength she had never before possessed, she broke off one of the legs. The end of the leg was sharp, a jagged piece of wood sufficient to put down a vampire.
“Yes,” the strange boy whispered. “Do it quickly, before he suspects anything.”
Jesse nodded, more to herself than to him, and left the room. She felt the boy behind her as she walked to her brother’s room. Ben’s door was open and he lay sprawled on his back. He had on his Beats, deaf to the world as his music played.
Jesse approached him with firm steps. Grasping the broken chair leg in both hands, she raised it above her head.
Ben’s eyes opened, and then widened in surprise as she drove the makeshift stake down and into his undead heart.
As her brother screamed, Jesse felt the strange boy’s hands wrap around hers and she smiled as they pushed the stake in deeper together.
Chapter 9: Damage Control
Clair Willette stood in her office, staring at the new map on the wall where a bright, silver pin marked the small town called Amherst in New Hampshire.
And the One might be there. The chance was high, and the possibility made her drunk with anticipation.
For nearly two centuries, the Watchers had tracked the house down. Once, when Borgin had still been alive, they had managed to steal it out from under him. But his retribution had been quick, and the property had vanished. The few people who had even known of its existence had ended up in shallow graves along the eastern seaboard, if the stories were true.
Clair had no reason to doubt their veracity.
She needed to find a team that could go into the marked off territory, find the One and supplicate themselves before him.
Clair would have to be among them, and it had been twenty years since she had last gone out to meet with one of the dead.
Will we have enough power? she wondered. With the loss of Borgin and the Mill, their ability to provide the energy the One would need, had been severely diminished. Part of her wanted to rush through the process, but to do so could have disastrous results for all of them.
Still, she needed to know.
Clair went to her desk, sat down, and called Ms. Coleman on the intercom. When the secretary answered, Clair said, “Connect me to Rousseau, please.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Ms. Coleman replied. In less than a minute, the phone rang and Clair answered it.
“Clair,” Rousseau said. His voice was thin and pinched, as if he forced each word through his nasal passage before he spoke it. It conjured up a memory of him, dressed in his perennial running suit with his strawberry-blonde hair swept back and held in place with too much gel. “What can I do for you?”
“I need you to check out a location for me,” she explained.
“Hm, where?” he asked, and Clair gave him the particulars.
“That’s a haul for me,” he said after a moment of silence. “A good two hours, minimum. Connecticut State Police are cracking down on speeding this month. Not to mention the business I’d lose down here.”
“I understand,” Clair said, allowing her annoyance to seep i
nto her voice. “However, you are held on retainer for the Watchers, and you are required for this particular investigation.”
He grunted on the other end but said nothing else.
“Excellent,” Clair said, dismissing the conversation. “I expect to see you in a week, no later. I’d rather not have any more unexpected issues occur among the rank and file.”
“Sure,” he said with a snort. “Whatever you say, Clair. I’ll go up there. Dig around a bit. See what I can come up with. Anything I should know about before I go into Amherst?”
“Nothing that comes to mind,” Clair answered. “It is merely a new acquisition. I expect you would need to take the proper precautions and nothing more.”
“I’m an extremely careful man, Clair,” Rousseau stated with pride. “It’s why I’m on retainer, and why I’m still in the business.”
“My thoughts exactly,” she said. “Call me when you have information.”
Without waiting for his response, Clair ended the call. She logged into her computer, brought up her email and frowned at the number of inquiries from various section heads.
All were about Borgin Keep. Each sought information, from the bare bones of ‘how’ to the more thoughtful ‘who’ may have done it.
Clair had spent a good portion of the previous evening with a bottle of wine and a pad of paper. By midnight, she had crafted what she believed to be a firm response that covered all of the questions.
It also avoided giving them anything remotely close to the truth.
My Dear Colleagues,
You have all heard about the Keep, and I regret to inform you at this time that we have no information to pass on. I have placed a mole within the State of Vermont’s forensic sciences division and our operative has successfully accessed the State’s server. As soon as the State has determined what happened to the Keep, I will let you know.
Until that time, however, we must continue on. As you may have heard, there is the real and thrilling possibility that the One has been found. We are in the process of reaching out to the entity and we are hopeful to have information regarding it sometime in the next two weeks.
Our patience, and the patience of those who went before us, has nearly paid off. Soon we will no longer need to fear our mortality. Soon, my friends, we will dine at the table of the One and outlive humanity.
When she finished, Clair read the email over several times, adjusted sentences and grammar, and then pressed send.
In a split second, the message was sent, and she exited out of the account. Chuckling to herself, Clair stood, walked back to the map, and stared at Amherst.
Will he find the One? she wondered. Are we finally at the end?
If he did, Clair knew he wouldn’t survive the experience, in which case no news would be good news.
Smiling, Clair hoped she would never hear from Rousseau again.
Chapter 10: Securing the Alpha File
She knew it existed.
Not from word of mouth or any such nonsense, but she had actually seen the file. A glimpse only, to be sure, yet it had been there. Plainly listed as such on the screen of Director Cesare before he too had been removed in the tradition of the Watchers.
Cesare had never been adept when it came to the use of a computer, and his inability to close files had leaked information out to the wrong people. In the end, it had cost him his life, when an assassin had slipped an awl between a pair of vertebrae in his neck.
She pushed the thoughts from her mind as she slipped into the office. For the second time that week, she had made her way past security through the outer office and into the director’s inner sanctum. She was frustrated with her lack of foresight. Had she been thinking beyond the map, she would have considered the significance of the alpha file, and how useful it could be.
With a deep breath, she reminded herself of the importance of the task at hand. A small, tickle of fear settled into the base of her neck. The hour was late, far later than was acceptable for her to be in the office.
And there was no reason why she should be standing in front of Clair’s computer. In the darkness, she stood still, staring at the hard drive, waiting.
Her patience was rewarded a few moments later when a dull green light flashed on the drive’s front.
The system was on.
She stepped closer to the desk and with a gloved hand, she turned on the monitor. When the image of the desktop appeared, she smiled. She typed in Clair’s username and password quickly, having acquired both of them weeks before through a backdoor program in the system.
She bent down, pulled a thumb drive from her pocket, and plugged it into an available port. She proceeded to search for the information she needed, a growing fear of discovery gnawing at the back of her thoughts.
In less than a minute she found the alpha file, clearly marked and named in a folder labeled ‘Important.’ She made a copy of the file and then transferred it to the thumb drive and pocketed it.
She reached the outer office and heard footsteps in the hallway.
With her heart pounding in her chest, she stepped to the left of the door. Her palms began to sweat and her mouth went dry.
Someone swiped an entrance key through the reader, a confirmation beep sounded and the door swung open.
She pressed herself close against the wall, the door stopping only a few inches from her feet. Her eyes were closed as she listened, trying to hear who it was.
Then the door was swinging away from her, clicking shut. In the semi-darkness, she saw a person walk to the director’s office. Another key was swiped through and Director Clair Willette stepped into her office. She passed through the evening glow that came through the window and walked to her desk to turn on the light, not looking back as it settled into place.
The thief wasted no time and let herself out, easing the main door shut as she stood in the hallway. Her vision pulsed as she stepped away and hurried down the hall towards the stairs. The thumb drive in her pocket felt like a lead weight as she realized that she could have died because of it.
The Watchers, as she had seen in the past, were not fond of thieves.
She knew what was done to them, and it was an experience she preferred not to have.
Composing herself, the thief left the building, turned down a nearby alley, and made her way towards the nearest T stop.
David needed the alpha file, and she was going to get it to him.
Chapter 11: Rousseau Goes to Amherst
The town of Amherst was small enough that people noticed when Rousseau pulled up and parked his Volvo by the village green in front of the Congregationalist Church. He nodded and waved to a few, a smile on his face as he walked around to the back of the car. From the trunk, he removed a few cameras, a camera bag, and a floppy sunhat that made him look ridiculous.
When the curious town folk saw his equipment, they lost interest in him.
He was another person from out of state looking to get some pictures of their beautiful town. Someone, therefore, of absolutely no concern.
Rousseau whistled some piece of pop music he had heard on the radio, shut the trunk and adjusted the hat. While he did so, he brought up the memory of the maps he had studied. He positioned himself with the church on the left and looked at the town hall. Beyond it, he knew, was a path that would lead into a small neighborhood. From there a street would lead to an entrance into conservation land.
And it was in the virgin woods that he would find the parcel the Watchers were concerned with.
Putting his hands in his pockets Rousseau strolled along, smiling at people he saw, pausing to snap a picture here and there. In a short time, he passed the town hall, and after half an hour, he made it through the neighborhood. He stopped at the edge of the conservation land. A pair of crooked granite posts flanked either side of a narrow entrance that led into the land. Between the two posts was a length of thick, one-inch chain. The steel was painted orange and served as a barrier to anyone who tried to drive into the woods
.
Beyond the barrier was a path, wide enough for a single vehicle, but grass grew in the tire ruts and he doubted anyone had driven on it in recent memory.
Rousseau climbed over the chain as awkwardly as he could for the benefit of anyone who happened to watch him enter the forest. Tall trees pressed close to the road and he felt a shift in temperature after he had traveled twenty yards along the path.
It wasn’t from the shade of the trees, he knew. The cold was deep, far more penetrating than the weather dictated.
Rousseau recognized the chill as the mark of the dead. Either a great many of them, or a particularly strong one.
He didn’t like either option. For a moment, he hesitated, considered a retreat from the wooded lane, and then he shook his head.
As Clair had pointed out, he had a job to do and he would do it.
Rousseau continued along the path. It wound on, the forest tight on either side. Eventually the trail he followed grew wider. The ruts vanished. He shivered as the temperature plummeted, his breath coming out in great white clouds as he exhaled.
Rousseau paused, stripped the cameras off, and left them on the ground before he continued. From his pocket, he took several iron rings, fitting them on his fingers while walking deeper into the forest.
Part of him screamed to stop, demanded that he go back into town, and find a place to buy a shotgun.
But he couldn’t stop.
Something tugged at him. A deep seeded curiosity demanded him to follow the path.
Ahead of him a giant tree loomed, the likes of which he had never seen before. The branches were tremendous, each one filled with leaves and he knew, deep within his gut, that he needed to be there.
He knew he had to walk beneath the boughs of the tree.
Rousseau quickened his pace, stumbling over the occasional root or fallen branch, but he never stopped.
The forest darkened and he broke into a jog.
Then he was there.
Before him stretched a small burial ground and at the back was an old house. Almost ancient.
