by Gene Baker
Besides the pregnancy, and the circumstances around it, Penny’s mind and body had undergone many changes in the last few months. So, when she sensed other presences nearby, she was not startled or surprised when she automatically knew that at least one of them was not entirely human.
“Hello, Mister Grant. Or should I say Doctor Grant?”
“Calling me Howard would be just fine.”
“Okay, Howard. Why are you here and not Edwin and Merrilee?”
“Now is too soon for them to be out and about. They both, however, send their love and hope to see you soon. As such, they have also sent me here to look out for you and the baby.”
Penny leaned to her side to see the other man that was still standing in the shadows behind Grant.
“I didn’t catch your name, sir.”
“Well, that’s because I didn’t throw it at you.” The man stepped into the dim light, smiled, and extended his hand to Penny. “Aaron Baldwin at your service, Miss Penelope Hale!”
***
“Okay, let’s go through this by the numbers,” Nikki finally said after her headache had eased enough. “Penelope Hale was your great-grandmother because the baby that died and was buried with her was a stillborn by another girl in the home. Baby Boy Hale was adopted by the Baldwin family and became your paternal grandfather, which explains your stunning resemblance to Marie Hale. The curse on this house and the family that occupied it began with it being built on top of the remains of Alejandra’s home. The elemental was created when that happened, and, with each successive act of murder, it becomes stronger, feeding off of anger, hate, and death. Edgel Hale murdered his parents and sister and made it look like the flu got them. When Edwin struck Edgel, because the boy was defending his mother, the incident brought back to him his own crimes and he couldn’t allow any such repeat of history. Does that bring us up to date so far?”
“You pretty much hit the highlights, yes,” Harley answered.
Cody walked over from the kitchen sink and handed the warm, wet towel he was carrying to Nikki. As Mrs. Baldwin buried her face in the cloth, Cody asked his question.
“So Edwin Hale has come back as a vampire?”
“Yes, and it is a good thing that you stopped going to the root cellar.”
“Why’s that?”
“That crate with dirt in it is where he and Merrilee stay when they are in the area. The dirt is from the graves of people buried in the Blue Light Cemetery and it was made stronger by the addition of blood that was in those jars on the shelf above it.”
“Oh my god! Talk about close calls! Why would they be back here? Is it because of you finding Edwin’s journal? Is it because you’re his . . .” Cody flailed his arms, trying to find the appropriate words.
“Great-grandniece,” Harley said, ending his confusion.
“Yeah! I guess that’s it.”
“You know the only way we’ll find the real reason.”
Nikki Baldwin dropped the cloth and slammed her hands down on the kitchen table.
“No!” she yelled. “That is as far as it goes! We are outta here!”
“I’m ready, Mom! We end it here and now, or go through the rest of our lives constantly looking over our shoulder, dodging shadows, dreading nightfall, and scared shitless.”
“You mean what my life was like until I met you guys,” Cody said softly.
Nikki watched as Harley’s face softened from one of insolence to an appearance of tender understanding of her friend. Cody smiled at the uncomfortable pause in the conversation as well as the look on Harley.
“It’s okay to talk about it now. It’s just that I remember how nervous I was when I walked up to you on that bridge. I just knew that I had to trust someone sometime. Not everyone is as jacked up as the people I grew up around. I took a chance, and I wouldn’t change that decision for anything in the world.”
“It’s called ‘Goofer Dust’. I got the recipe for it and most of the ingredients off the internet,” Cody answered the unasked question as he encircled the trio with an ochre-colored powder. “Nothing supernatural will cross it and so as long as we stay within it, we should be okay.”
“It reeks!” Harley exclaimed while holding her nose. “What’s in it?”
“A lot of different things, but what you’re smelling is because it’s mainly made of salt, sulfur, garlic, and wolf’s bane.”
“Sounds more like a barbecue rub,” Nikki nervously joked.
As the last rays of sunlight slowly vanished beyond the western horizon, the alarm on Cody’s watch buzzed loudly.
“I guess we are as ready as we’ll ever be,” he said with no small amount of resignation and moved to place himself between his friends and the root cellar. Harley and her mother moved to their positions on each side of Cody and each took a hand.
“We are in this together, Cody Taylor,” Nikki said with whatever amount of courage she could muster. An unnatural darkness slowly enveloped them, and it was not just a decrease in the amount of light available to a human’s eyes. Night had sated itself on the dying day and left nothing behind but oppressive desolation. Harley felt the familiar warming from the fifteen million year old meteorite fragment on her chest. Its power injected her body and spirit, and she guided that strength to flow through her and into Cody, and, through him, into her mother.
Suddenly a burst of halogen illumination from a hand-held tactical light ripped a hole in the wretched melancholy.
“Hell of a place to be star gazing!” Sheriff Donnelly said sarcastically as he and Deputy Harrison approached from behind the bushes surrounding the old oak. Wrinkling his nose, Donnelly said, “Goofer Dust! I haven’t smelled that since I was in ‘Nawlins’.”
Nikki and Cody winced and turned away from the blinding light that had ruined their night vision. Harley did not avert her eyes however, and angrily stared at the intruders.
“You shouldn’t be here!” she snarled.
Without thinking about the action, or its consequences, Harrison swung a combat shotgun up and pointed it at the girl with green traffic lights for eyes. In a split second, both Cody and Nikki jumped in front of Harley.
“No!” they shouted.
At the exact same time, the sheriff batted the weapon upward so that it discharged the sabot holly stake harmlessly into the air.
“Now you’ve done it!” he shouted loud enough that anyone’s ears still ringing from the blast would hear it. After Donnelly’s other hand dropped the flashlight it was carrying, it immediately came up and snatched the shotgun from the startled deputy. Now disarmed from her primary weapon, Angela reached up to grasp the Alberona Cross at her neck. It crumbled into grey dust as she touched it. Backing away from the group, her brain shuffled through other options and settled on the pistol on her hip. Her hand slapped only an empty holster.
“Looking for this?” Edwin Hale asked as he and Merrilee stepped out of the shadows. He presented the disassembled gun and tossed it onto the ground, useless. “The second that your tiny little brain considered doing harm to an innocent child, you lost any protection that talisman gave you. Now your ass is mine!”
“Pardon me, Mister Hale, but you and I had an agreement!” The sheriff interjected as he picked up the flashlight. “Angela took care of that nasty bit of business known as Mister Starlight for you, if you remember.”
Freeing herself from the protective envelopment of her mother and Cody, Harley walked toward the deputy.
“You are hurting, Angela. Let me help you and ease your pain.”
The sheriff barely caught the abruptly unconscious Angela before she hit the ground.
“This makes us even,” Edwin hissed as his fangs slowly retracted.
Seemingly ignoring the vampire’s response, Donnelly lowered his deputy to the ground.
“Thank you, Miss Harley,” he said. “Your great-grandmother would be proud of you.”
Harley smiled as she pulled back the curtains between life and death.
“Let the love
of those that have passed, and your love for them, mend your shattered heart,” she said as her small hands caressed the sides of the deputy’s head. “They are there, your husband and child who were so terribly taken from this world. They wait for you and will be there to love you again when your time comes to join them.”
For the first time since being turned, Edwin Hale actually wished he could cry. Perhaps it would relieve the agony he was feeling in every molecule of his revenant body. Maybe it was his punishment from God for the choice he made. He watched his mother take Penny’s hand and, together, they walked down the glistening stone path that weaved between bright green willows and vanish into a stunning white light.
Harley Baldwin, as Gaielos had described it, had drawn upon the power of the supernatural to bring closure to those separated by death. She still had quite a long journey ahead of her before her full potential could be realized, but she had passed this first test with flying colors. Turning her attention away from Edwin and Harley, Merrilee faced Nikki and Cody.
“Vampires are apex predators whose ability to move unnoticed among their prey is paramount to their continued existence. In the past, people . . . humans . . . with particular abilities like Harley’s, have led purges that nearly wiped us out. As such, she could pose a serious danger to Nocturnals. If she is actually seen as such a threat…well, all of you will need protection.” Looking first at Cody Taylor and then to Nikki Baldwin, Merrilee smiled and continued. “But, I haven’t spent the past sixty years sharing a coffin with Eddie to not know that he will do whatever it takes to provide that cover.”
“What about the rest of your kind, Merrilee? They might not be on the same page with this,” Nikki squeaked out through a nerve-tightened throat.
“That is a given, Nikki. Our society is not all that unlike yours, in that there will be some who express dissension, and that is why this arrangement will have to be a closely guarded secret for now.”
After making sure that his deputy was comfortable, Donnelly approached the group.
“I’ll also be around to make sure that you are taken care of when Edwin and Merrilee have to be elsewhere,” he said.
Merrilee walked over and wrapped her slender arms around the man’s waist.
“Your father would be proud of you,” she said. Raising his head, Hank Donnelly addressed the questioning looks he was receiving.
“Howard Grant was my dad. I took my mother’s family name in case there were problems with that.”
***
May 20, 2014
The smell of fresh-pressed olives seeped into Richard Harbisson’s room from the courtyard below his window. Not an uncommon thing to experience in the hills above Alberona, Italy. Someone had entered through the kitchen door on the first floor and the odor had been carried up the stairs.
The 65-year-old former FBI agent retrieved the cross and pistol from the side pocket of his wheelchair. When he heard the familiar sound of hard-soled shoes on small female feet ascending the steps, he replaced the objects.
“Good morning, Sister,” Harbisson greeted the young nun who strode reluctantly into his room. Without a word, the woman handed over a package with a Dallas, Texas, USA postal return address.
“What’s in it?” the agent asked, noting that it had been none-too-carefully opened and resealed.
“Fragments of an alberona dimittis that you should be familiar with,” the woman responded in English that belied her Scandinavian heritage. Harbisson took a quick glimpse inside before he tossed the package onto his bed.
“I can’t be sure from the condition, but I assume it is the one my father wore.”
“Yes,” she replied curtly.
“Is she dead?”
“Not that we have been made aware of.”
“When I gave it to Angela, I guess I left out that certain responsibility with its use.”
“It should never have left your possession in the first place!”
As the holy woman abruptly turned to leave, Agent Harbisson asked a question that stopped her.
“You don’t like me do you?”
Slowly turning her head to speak over her shoulder, the young woman spoke, trying to suppress her disdain,
“The Holy Father himself charged me with your care. He said nothing about liking you.”
“Is it that onerous of a job?”
“Yes…it is.”
Lost in Shadows
As darkness falls
and the river runs . . .
another day
is said and done.
The moon’s so bright
it lights the night . . .
not even a shadow
of you in sight.
And yet you’re here
inside my mind . . .
in another place
in another time.
Cherished memories
that I keep close . . .
though you’re not here
I love you most.
So pure and good
you’re kind and strong . . .
and with my love
is where I belong.
The passion swells
within my chest . . .
and in your arms
I long to rest.
So let my days
turn into night . . .
in your heart
I’ll find my light.
Then when my days
on earth are through . . .
I’ll be lost in shadows
always with you.
T. J. Baker
About the Author
Originally from Houston, Gene Baker is a veteran and has worked as a clinical laboratory scientist since graduating from the University of Texas. His own life and experiences heavily influence his writing and he hopes that his work stands as a testimony to the redemptive and healing power of love. He currently resides in Florida with his loving wife of over three decades. This is his first novel.
