"Ruby, as much as I've learned about this town, I feel as if I'm missing something. I know all about Edward Mason and his vile plantation; I know sordid tales about many of the families here; I could draw a timeline of every major incident that's occurred in this town over the past one hundred and sixty years. But my intuition tells me that I am missing an integral piece of the puzzle. The Hunters always have been a private clan. I believe that there's a reason why."
Ruby clucked her tongue. She opened the oven and checked the progress of the roast beef.
"I'm not befriending David only because I want to discover his family's secrets," he said. "You know me much better than that. I genuinely enjoyed speaking with him and hope to develop a friendship. However, if I can discreetly uncover a few historical gems in the process, that would please me immensely."
"You know how I feel about digging into people's business," Ruby said. "But I know your ways. You won't be satisfied until you find the dirt."
"It's not dirt. It's only data"
She smiled. "What do the kids say these days? Whatever, man"
He kissed her on the cheek. "I'm going to feed the hound."
"Dinner will be ready in ten minutes," she said.
A large bag of Purina dog food stood near the back door. Franklin took the big scoop that lay on top of the bag and dug it inside, filling the cup with the brownish nuggets.
The dog waited for him at the foot of the steps. It was a mutt, a mix of a collie and another breed he couldn't place. He'd discovered the hound rooting through his garbage one day, and he had adopted it as his own. He never brought the canine inside the house or threw a leash around its neck. He let the dog roam throughout the town as it wished. It came to him when it was hungry and wanted to be petted, normally at the same time every day.
He'd named the mutt Malcolm, because on the day he found the dog he'd been re-reading the autobiography of the famous civil rights leader.
"Hey, how're you doing, Malcolm?" Franklin scratched the dog behind the ears. It whined in pleasure. He poured the food into the large bowl that rested at the base of the steps. He refilled the water bowl, too.
As he watched Malcolm eat, he considered what he and Ruby had discussed. He had been honest with his wifeafter being married for over forty years, he'd learned that it was simply easier to be honest. He was convinced that the Hunter family possessed information that could deepen his knowledge of the town's historical background. After living across the street from the notoriously taciturn Richard Hunter for seven years, Franklin had almost given up hope of learning what secrets the Hunters might be guarding. But David-now he was a nice young man. And Franklin suspected that David did not know his family's history himself. The two of them could, if David allowed it, learn together. Indeed, he might very well be a great help to David.
Life in Dark Corner, normally predictable and quiet, was going to become a lot more interesting, very soon.
Chapter 2
r 'yle Coiraut could not relax on the airplane. L~
LAlthough he sat in the first-class section of the Boeing aircraft, in a comfortable leather seat, and though the seat beside him was vacant, ensuring abundant elbow room, since he had boarded the plane at Charles de Gaulle, in Paris, he had been fidgeting. He tried to read the book he'd brought along, a Mississippi travelogue, but he could not focus on it for any longer than a few minutes. Attempting to read the airline magazine and the Wall Street Journal brought the same disappointing result. When he slipped on headphones and switched on the portable CD player to listen to one of Rachmaninoff's peerless piano concertos-music which usually turned his thoughts away from his troubles-the notes drew his nerves as taut as piano wire.
He drummed his long fingers against the armrests. He understood the source of his unease, of course: he could not tolerate sacrificing control of his safety. The fact that he had placed responsibility for his welfare in the hands of a human, the pilot, tortured him. Humans were fallible and ac cident prone. Airline crashes were not common, but they happened with enough frequency for this transcontinental voyage to thoroughly unsettle him.
A window was beside him, and he'd pulled down the plastic shutter, shutting out his view of the clouds. He did not ordinarily fear heights, but looking through the portal made it frightfully easy to imagine a fatal plummet to the earth.
The flight attendant, a striking blond woman, strolled along the aisle, checking on passengers. She smiled at him and asked, for perhaps the third time, whether he required anything else to enhance his flight experience. He smiled briefly and responded that he was fine. He had not eaten anything and had drunk only water, and had asked her for nothing. She continually approached him, he suspected, because she believed him to be a celebrity.
His clothing might partly explain her curiosity. His entire wardrobe was black: boots, slacks, shirt, leather jacket, and hat. He wore tight, black leather gloves and aviator sunglasses, too.
His skin was a rich chocolate-brown, and he was tall, about six-feet-five, with the build of a track runner. Draped in his elegant, ebony garments, he cut an impressive figure.
The flight attendant likely thought he was a professional athlete; perhaps a famous basketball player seeking to avoid attention. Or maybe a famed fashion model. He routinely encountered similar assumptions whenever he swam through the pool of humanity during daylight hours. In actuality, his heavy, dark clothing was a matter of necessity: vampires did not endure sunlight well.
Sun rays did not affect vampires as dramatically as the popular media portrayed. He wouldn't catch fire, or melt as though he were made of wax. But exposure to ultraviolet light caused his skin to itch terribly. According to Mother, a vampire who habitually courted daylight would accelerate the aging process, too. Needless to say, vampires only ventured outdoors during the day when it was essential.
His journey to the United States was essential. He had been waiting for this trip for his entire life one hundred and sixty-eight years.
He shifted in his seat. They had been airborne for only thirty minutes. He had at least eleven more hours in the sky and a connecting flight ahead of him. An eternity.
This was not his first airline trip. Throughout the past few decades, he had traveled the globe via air. But he had taken his previous journeys in Mother's private jet, piloted by an especially gifted human agent. He regretted that he had refused Mother's offer of taking the family aircraft to the United States. Now, he paid for his arrogant refusal with extreme discomfort.
His black leather bag lay on the seat beside him. He unzipped the top compartment, and retrieved a cool aluminum packet.
The silver vacuum-sealed packet contained sixteen ounces of human blood-though no one watching could discern the precious fluid contained therein. When enjoying a meal in the company of humans, discretion was vital.
He and Mother procured all of the blood they required from blood banks, as did many vampires these days. He had not fed on a living creature in ages. Mother, ever concerned about risk and attracting dangerous attention, had insisted that they learn to sustain themselves through safe, nonviolent means. The emergence of blood banks was a boon for vampires; the wealthy ones had forged confidential arrangements with a small, trusted network of blood banks throughout the world.
There was no need to ever hunt for food again. Indeed, hunting human prey seemed primitive to him, an activity pursued only by uncivilized vampires, or those who were poor and had no alternative. The few prosperous vampires who chose to hunt did so for sport, under carefully controlled conditions-the vampire equivalent of game preserves.
Kyle removed the black straw from the back of the carton. It took three stabs at the perforated hole for him to puncture the surface and slide the straw inside.
He restrained himself from sucking dry the entire packet in a greedy gulp. He had fed only a few hours ago, and was not genuinely hungry. He sipped only to soothe his nerves.
The cool, thick blood flowed over his tongue: delicious.
He leaned back in the seat, sighed.
A pleasurable warmth spread through his body.
The blond flight attendant appeared at his shoulder and asked if he would like a pillow. He accepted her offer.
Smiling flirtatiously, she asked him to bend his head forward. She slipped the pillow behind him and gently pushed him back against the cushion.
"Let me know if you need anything else, sir." Her fingers brushed across his shoulder. Her tongue flickered briefly between her glossy red lips.
He smiled. "Thank you. I certainly will."
He watched her walk away, her tight hips undulating under her skirt. He loved human women, and they invariably found him irresistibly attractive. Some of the fictions about vampires were true: vampires were considered to be sexy.
His head resting against the pillow, Kyle closed his eyes. For the first time since he had boarded the airplane, his thoughts unwound, and his muscles relaxed.
Not surprisingly, as his mind drifted, he thought about his last encounter with Mother ...
Silvery beads of afternoon rain streamed down the tinted parlor window as Kyle gazed outside at the green hills of their country estate.
Behind him, Mother said, "I do not approve of this trip. I understand why you wish to leave, but I do not approve"
Kyle turned. Mother reclined on a chaise lounge, frowning. Even in her distress, she was indescribably beautiful. Her skin was dark and flawless; her lustrous, midnight-black hair cascaded to her shoulders. Six feet tall, she possessed a lean, exquisitely proportioned figure. She was dressed in a silky lavender wrap, and matching shoes.
Mother's true name was Lisha, but amongst humans she used many aliases, to maintain her privacy. To a human, at first glance, she would appear to be no older than forty. In truth, Mother was the oldest living vampire in the worldand the original mother of their race. Her true age was a mystery, even to Kyle.
One look into her eyes confirmed that she was far older than she appeared to be. Almond-shaped, obsidian, and gleaming, her eyes reflected a depth of knowledge and wisdom that few living beings would ever attain. She had mesmerized countless creatures with her compelling gaze, including him.
Meeting her eyes and voicing his decision to disobey her wishes was one of the most difficult steps Kyle had ever taken. Perspiration coated his face.
"Mother, I must go. When you told me the truth, you foresaw what I would decide to do, didn't you? You should not be surprised."
A month ago, Kyle had resolved to leave his mother's French estate and establish a home of his own in another region, perhaps in western Africa. His resolution was born of a restlessness that had plagued him for years. Like a child, he had spent his life under the protective arm of his mother, and though he lived in luxury and absorbed her endless store of knowledge about vampires and mankind, he yearned to break away, to live his own life. Mother had known that he would want to leave one day, and she was not startled. But what startled him was when she told him the truth of his father.
Before, she always had led him to believe that his father was dead and had died before Kyle was born. She finally revealed that his father was in the United States, entombed in a cave in a rural town in the state of Mississippi, alive, but submerged in a Sleep that had, so far, endured for over a century and a half.
His father was alive. Throughout his life, he had wondered about his father, his male co-creator. Although, as Mother tried to explain, most vampires lived happily without full knowledge of both their parents, Kyle did not believe that he was like other vampires. His gift-and perhaps his burden-was his capacity to feel emotion. He was not a cold-blooded predator, a heartless creature of the night. He was capable of a vast range of feeling that surely rivaled what any human could experience.
He wanted to understand his place in the world. He wanted to be guided and taught by one who could understand him in a way that Mother could not. He had yearned for a connection to his father, and had thirsted for knowledge about him, even though Mother had deceived him into believing that his father was dead. And in Mother's opinion, one who was dead was not worth discussion; she'd told him little about his own father.
Mother had lied to "protect" him, she claimed. It was only when she realized that he was going to leave her, to live his own life, that she confessed. He hated her for lying to him, though he understood her intentions in concealing the truth. She knew what he would decide to do once he had learned the truth. She knew.
"You are correct, I am not surprised at your intentions," Mother said. "I told you the truth at last because I had hoped you would handle the knowledge wisely. I warn you to leave the past alone, my son. Let your father rest, in peace"
"You ask the impossible," he said. "All my life I've wondered about what he was like, how it would have been to know him. Do you think I could ever rest, knowing that he's alive?"
"How do you think I feel?" she said. "He was my companion. I loved him deeply-more than you could ever understand." She closed her eyes for a moment, drew a breath to compose herself. "Leaving your father to follow his unfortunate fate was one of the most difficult decisions I've ever made"
"But that was almost a hundred seventy years ago!" Kyle said. He slammed his fist against the back of a chair, and it creaked under the impact. Mother watched him, patiently enduring his tantrum. But a tall figure swathed in black appeared across the room, at the door.
"Is everything all right, madam?" the vampire said.
Kyle hissed. This vampire was his mother's newest companion. He annoyed Kyle, but then, virtually all of her companions annoyed him. Kyle had sufficient self-awareness to admit that he was jealous of the attention that Mother lavished on her lovers.
"Mother and I are having a private discussion," Kyle said. He raised his hand, and the parlor door, propelled by an invisible force, swung shut in the vampire's face. Kyle glimpsed surprise in the creature's eyes before the door slammed; his mother's companion was a new vampire and had yet to learn the extent of a vampire's talents.
Mother had calmly watched the brief exchange.
Kyle paced across the hardwood floor. "As I was about to say, times are different now. The American slave trade has long since ended. There is no Civil War. My father could live in peace"
"Child, those points are irrelevant. Diallo was born and raised as a warrior. When he was taken to the United States as a slave, his taste for violence only grew more intense. If I had not intervened, he would have died at the hands of his slave master"
"You've told me all this. But that was so long ago"
"I'm telling you again because you must listen to me. For Diallo's entire life, as both a man and a vampire, his hunger for violence has been insatiable. After he left me in New Orleans, when I was pregnant with you, he roamed the countryside and murdered hundreds-not for food, not for vengeance, but because he enjoyed it." She gave him a level gaze. "Do you understand me, Kyle? Your father was a monster. A Sleep of a thousand years would never diminish the bloodlust that rages in his soul."
Kyle stopped pacing and slumped in a chair across from his mother. His hands trembled.
"I can change him," Kyle said. "When he learns that I am his son, his heart will change"
Mother laughed bitterly. "Change Diallo? Even I could not change Diallo. He is more iron-willed than you can fathom. It is fortunate for us that the humans imprisoned him. He had awesome potential as a vampire. If he had been allowed to cause mayhem much longer, he would have tapped the range of his gifts, and in the end, brought destruction on us all."
Kyle could not bear to look at her. She was so keenly perceptive, and he hated it. She had lived so long and learned so much about the paths that life followed that she could predict what would happen long before such events came to pass. "Life is a Byzantine labyrinth," she had told him once. "But after you have lived as long as I have, you no longer dwell in the maze. You hover above it, and regarding it below you, can discern each twist and turn, far in advance"
Mo
ther reached across the distance that separated them and put her hand on his arm. Her long, slender fingers were warm.
"Let your father sleep, Kyle. It is better for all of us for you to let him be. He is at peace"
He shrugged off her hand.
"I can't," he said. "I have to know him, and see him. I have to."
She folded her arms across her chest. "You are too human, just as he was"
"Excuse me?"
She spat out the words: "Stubborn, short-sighted, emotional. Too much like a human. It was your father's undoing. Unfortunately, it may be yours as well."
"Mother, I don't wish to offend you-but you don't know everything."
Her eyes were not angry, only melancholy. "If you pursue this endeavor, I cannot assist you, or intervene. You can take our aircraft, but that is all the assistance I will offer."
"I'm not taking our airplane," he said. "I'll get there myself. Mamu and I will do everything. I don't need you."
Mother flinched as if slapped, and he felt sorry for what he had said. Then his regret faded. He wasn't sorry, not really. He was tired of her dictating his life, offering her sage advice about everything. He wanted to choose his own course of action, and if it proved to be wrong, then that was his burden to bear, and he would learn from the experience.
He realized one reason why he wanted to leave Mother and seek out his father: Living with an ancient being like her robbed him of experiencing the peaks and valleys that were a part of life. Life with Mother was smooth, predictable, safe. She lived in a heavily fortified compound, her every need provided for, her global network of connections ensuring her prosperity, her wisdom shielding her from making mistakes that would cause dangerous conflict. Life with her was, in a word, boring.
But as he thought about his unknown father, the mighty vampire whom Mother had failed to tame, his heart throbbed with excitement.
"You seek to be free of me," Mother said. "You desire to learn on your own, to taste trial and error. I know your heart, my son"
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