Her mother’s religion had been a wishy-washy thing; sometimes she felt it, sometimes she didn’t, but she told Jessie that she had made a promise to herself when she was pregnant. She would at least try to give her child a choice when it came to religion, and that meant taking her to church at least once a month.
They tried out numerous churches before settling on Father Raymond and St. Anthony’s. Jessie always had a suspicion that it was because he was the only priest she had ever met who would argue with her. Jessie allowed herself a little smile at the thought.
Mandy Hartwell loved to argue, and she naturally distrusted those who would not defend their beliefs. Give way to her in misguided politeness long enough and she would view you in contempt. Reverend Snakeshit, she called one minister whose greasy smile and misogynistic, hellfire-and-damnation sermon had annoyed her. The man had just blinked and stammered when confronted with her opinion of his views. Jessie had seen it happen time and time again; her mother simply did not like those who could not stand up to her.
Father Raymond, for all he looked like a pushover, certainly could. He poured sweat, wiped his glasses furiously, and doggedly defended his ideology when questioned. In the process, he’d earned a friend.
He might not look or act like a priest, Mandy had said admiringly of him, and I might think that half of what he believes is a crock of shit, but at least he knows how to shove back when I push him.
Jessie had never understood that playground concept of respect, but she knew it was the way her mother thought, and she accepted it. Just like most things about her mother, you might as well accept it, because there was no changing it. She was the way she was. Father Raymond accepted it, too, and that made Jessie like him.
Father Raymond did have one quality that priests need. He knew how to be a good friend. When Mandy had died, he didn’t give Jessie stupid platitudes or tell her she’d see her mother again one day. He’d simply sat with her on the lumpy old couch and cried, his arm around Jessie’s shoulders. She could feel him shaking against her while she wept, and somehow that made her feel better, to know that someone else mourned as fiercely as she did.
The lights at the rectory were all burning bright, and Jessie was relieved that she wouldn’t have to wake Father Raymond. When Jessie knocked on his door, he didn’t ask her stupid questions or act as if she needed a therapist when he found out what she wanted. He just gave her a small bottle of holy water without a second thought, as if many of his parishioners came after midnight with such a request.
“Father,” Jessie asked quietly as she turned to leave. “Do you believe in pure evil?”
“I think you can’t attribute everything that happens in the world to God. I know that there are some who wouldn’t agree, but there is evil in the world that God can’t prevent or control.” He took off his glasses and began to polish them on his bright blue and yellow shirt. “There is evil out there, and that is what is keeping me awake tonight. You be careful, you hear?”
Jessie promised.
“I’ve been dreaming of your mother a lot lately,” he said with a small smile. “I dreamed of her tonight. She told me that she missed me, and that she knows what happens when you die but she won’t tell me, just for pure meanness. She told me you were coming to see me, so I got up, got dressed and turned on the lights.”
***
The house that had taken the place of Abuela’s old one was massive, three-storied, and reminded Jessie of an old plantation house. It had columns out front and a porch that extended around it in a U-shape. The entire back of the house was a lanai, and the pool was Olympic-size – it was Florida, after all.
Christ, it looks like Tara on steroids, Jessie thought.
Pink bougainvillea cascaded everywhere and there were bed after bed of dazzling flowers so bright that they almost hurt the eyes, even in the dark. It seemed so out of place here, this monstrous home and its beautiful gardens. With the exception of the bougainvillea, the plants required tons of water, and would wither and die almost immediately if someone stopped taking care of them. If this house were left untended for just six months, the luxuriant gardens would be overgrown with vines and weeds. Palmetto bushes would creep forward, for this was a subtropical land and the plant life was unstoppable. It was fecund here, nearly uncontrollable, and left to itself for a short time, the land would claim back these gardens.
Jessie skirted the property and stepped into the undergrowth that bordered it. She smelled rotting plants and dank water underneath the canopy of scrub pines. Leaves rustled and she saw the shadow of something slip through the palmettos. Her anxiety rose; what if she’d remembered wrong? What if it wasn’t this way at all, and she never found the evil house?
When something screeched and flew past her face, Jessie thought her heart would explode. She laughed shakily when she saw that it was only a little burrowing owl. Thirty years ago, the little owls had been driven almost to extinction by the rush of construction. Their nests were now protected, and the owl preservation had been such a resounding success that you saw the fierce little creatures all over the place, sitting on the wood poles that game wardens put up to mark their burrows. This one was no more than six inches tall, but he had made a noise big enough for ten owls.
And then she saw it. The house.
It squatted before her like some rancorous goblin, sucking all the light from the full moon out of the sky and seeming to glow. Jessie drew nearer, repulsed and yet drawn by the malignant shell. The doorknob felt cold to her fingertips, just as it had in her dream.
She knew that he was waiting for her. He was calling her, and she was going to stop him.
Jessie opened the door and went in.
It was just as she remembered it; those charming, blood-filled paintings were still on the wall, but someone had brought in heavy, clunky furniture and filled the room with it. Jessie shivered. She felt cold.
She knew from her dream where the hallway was, and she walked to it. This all seemed so dream-like. If it wasn’t real, then she was crazy, but she didn’t feel crazy.
It was ridiculous, ridiculous to even be here, to believe that she might be meeting a demon and a vampire. Yet she was desperately hoping that ghosts at least were real, because she didn’t want to be in here alone. She was horribly afraid that she couldn’t do this by herself.
“Not alone,” said a familiar voice. “I’m here. I came with you before and I won’t desert you now.”
“Thanks, Momma,” she murmured. “I’m glad you’re here. I’m scared.”
“Courage, baby,” Mom whispered. “Everybody’s scared. Even the dead people.”
Jessie had to giggle at that one a little bit.
“Funny, is it?” asked a voice, and Jessie started violently. A woman with her hair died a deep purple smiled at her from a chair in the shadows. The woman smiled, and it made her look sweet and lovely, and Jessie could see the bones of what she used to be. There was no real amusement in her expression; the smile was false and her eyes were wicked, and Jessie knew that all her humor had been burnt out by drugs and Dian Carman.
“I guess it is funny, to you,” the woman said, and she lifted her arm and pointed a gun right at Jessie’s heart.
Jessie froze, knowing with a sick feeling down in her stomach that she had lost, that it was all over. The woman came closer, cackling a horrible laugh.
When she was almost upon her, something happened.
A soft blanket of light seemed to envelop her, making her purple hair glow weirdly. She held the gun out to Jessie, a vacuous smile on her face.
“Take the gun,” she said, but it wasn’t her voice. “You’re going to need it later. This one is going to sleep.”
Jessie took it and watched in wonderment when the woman sat back in the chair and fell instantly into sleep. Jessie held the gun out before her until her hand cramped, gripping it so tightly that her hand hurt. She loosed her grip and let the arm fall to her side; the gun felt cold and oily in her hand.
/> “Come to me, Jessie,” a voice whispered, and she knew then that the woman had been a diversion, a human shield for the real monster in this house. If Jessie had killed her, it would have been an amusement for him.
She stepped into the hallway, trying to see in every direction, refusing to allow panic to cloud her judgment. She would have to move quietly; who knew what else lurked in the dark waiting for her.
She paused by a staircase, but saw nothing.
“It’s above you,” Mom said, and Jessie jumped out of the way. A man landed lightly down in front of her, looking in his loose clothing like a huge black bat.
Where did he come from? she thought. I swear he wasn’t there when I looked before.
She pointed the gun at him, and he laughed uproariously.
“My master has made me immortal. You can’t kill me.”
Jessie listened to her heart and reached for the cross in her pocket. She flung it at him with all her strength, and when it hit his neck it sank into the skin like a hot knife into butter. Jessie watched in revulsion as the cross sank further and further beneath his skin, the chain slithering around his neck like a snake, severing his head. It dropped to the floor and rolled to one side, and Jessie cried out when his eyes blinked at her, accusing her. His flesh wrinkled and withered and slowly became a large pile of dust.
She stared at the dust for a long time, fighting the urge to scream. I’m sorry, she thought. I’m sorry you got involved in all of this, and I’m sorry that I caused your death. She picked up the cross from the pile of death and dropped it back into her pocket along with the gun.
She could hear him calling her name and laughing. Laughing because she had killed his disciple.
She passed a room with an open door and paused to look in. She saw a gallows-like platform perhaps two feet off the ground, with a grate as the surface to stand on and a galvanized tub beneath. This was where they killed their victims and performed their blood rites.
“Come in,” said two voices in unison and she saw a young couple huddled against the wall. They were both tall and blond and pale. They looked enough alike to be brother and sister, but Jessie hoped they weren’t. The boy was stroking the girl’s unfettered breast through the thin stuff of her tee shirt, and she was thrusting her body lasciviously against his hand, gazing lovingly up at him.
“Come in and play,” the boy said, licking his lips. He never took his eyes off Jessie, even while his hand was so busy with the girl. “Or we’ll come out there and play.”
He started for her, the girl holding his hand. He reached a hand into the pocket of his baggy jeans and pulled out a knife, and Jessie was mesmerized by the glinting silver edge. He was grinning and the girl was grinning, and Jessie knew that they would kill her, still smiling. And then they’d have sex right by her cooling body, because that was what they liked. She could see it there, glinting in their eyes.
And then Mandy Hartwell was there, holding her daughter’s hand. She pointed a finger at the couple, and they seemed to see her as clearly as Jessie did. The girl screamed out in terror when Jessie’s mother took a step toward them, never letting go of her tight grip on Jessie’s hand.
“Go!” she said, and her voice boomed like it always had when she was angry. Jessie had seen her back grown men down with that booming voice and flashing eyes. She would lift her chin, tighten her mouth and deepen her voice, and whoever she faced would feel ashamed, somehow, that they had not behaved.
Even those who ordinarily had no conscience.
“It’s been a bad dream, but now you’re awake. Go to the police station and tell them what you’ve done. Turn yourself in. Perhaps it’s not too late for you.” She stared hard and resolutely at both of them, her eyes grave. “If you stay, you will die. I will kill you.”
The girl was whimpering, dragging the boy back by his arm. They nearly trampled Jessie as they fled past her, and their footsteps pounded down the hall. She heard a door slam and looked wonderingly at her mother, who faded as she watched. Jessie was left clutching only air; there was no hand in hers.
“I’m still with you,” she whispered inside Jessie’s head. “I’m still here.”
Jessie marched to the door at the end of the hall. It had an old-fashioned crystal doorknob, and there was a key in the lock. Jessie knew the door wasn’t locked; he wanted her to come in.
“I’m with you,” Mind-Mom whispered. “I’m right here, too. You’re not alone.”
Jessie opened the door.
A fire burned in the massive fireplace, and he stood in front of it. He was elegant in black silk, and the fire backlit his glorious, silver-gilt hair and added warmth to the cold paleness of his skin. It looked as if demons and imps burned and moaned in the fire, twisting and reaching out their fervent arms to try and caress him with their heated limbs. His red, red lips curved into a slow, sensuous smile, but Jessie could see the rotten skull of her dream lying like a shadow behind the beautiful face, and she was not charmed.
Finally, Jessie admitted to herself that it was all real and not some hallucination; her mother, the ghost, was with her in this room and Dian Carman was a demon and a vampire. He was undead, and he had killed her mother and her friends. They were dead because of him.
“Welcome to my home,” he said softly. “I welcome you here even though you turned me so discourteously away from yours…but no matter, you are here now. You are such a bright young woman. I called you, and you came. You knew the way here only because I called you.”
“I’ve been here before,” Jessie said stonily. “That’s how I found it. I didn’t need your help, and I don’t believe in your power. You’re a sick psychopath.”
Annoyance creased his perfect features, and a red light flashed for a second in his eyes. Then he smiled again.
“Perhaps.” He gestured around the room. “Come, join the party.”
Jessie had been so focused on him that she hadn’t seen the people all around; they were all young, all dressed in black, and all leering at her. She felt her skin crawl. Their avid expressions bordered on lust; they were all his people, and he had enslaved them just as he had the others she had met on her way to this room. They would tear her apart at his command, just as they had done before.
She saw Dan Jackson among them, smiling eagerly at her as he lounged against a cushion in the corner.
She was never able to explain everything that happened after that, not to herself and not to anyone else.
Hate seared her body but it didn’t burn out the terror she felt. Jessie dug down deep inside to try and banish the fear, but the strength she felt didn’t come from inside. It came from without, a great, overwhelming flood that stiffened her knees and kept her on her feet. Jessie felt filled with a cold flame that would not be assuaged until it had vengeance. She pointed at Dan Jackson in fury.
“Murderer!” she cried, but it was Shannon’s voice. “Murderer! You are just as responsible for all the deaths as that thing you who you call master. I’ve been punished for my sins, and you will be, too.”
Dan Jackson jackknifed upright, looking shaken.
Lifting her arms into the air, Jessie laughed. But it was not her voice that laughed, nor was it just one voice. It was hundreds upon thousands of voices, all laughing together, and it hurt the ears. Her audience watched in horror, even the demon Dian was afraid. Jessie felt the power fill her to the top with glorious light.
She could hear thoughts not her own and the part of her mind that was still hers filled to the brim with pity and horror.
(no oh no jesus have mercy that hurts)
(help me timmy’s dead help me help me I saw him help me)
(momma momma momma)
Jessie began to know things.
A woman in only a ragged nightdress ran through snow on bare feet, her black hair tangled around her face. Her bare arms pumped at her sides and she looked behind her as she ran. Her cheeks were bright pink from exertion; her nostrils opened wide as she panted and ran hard to get
away from the three monsters that pursued her. Dian Carman leaped on her and knocked her down while the other two roared in laughter, and the snow beside her was stained red with blood.
A woman in old-fashioned clothing clutched her two small children to her breast and begged for their lives. She offered herself instead, pleading with the three monsters before her. Dian Carman laughed and told her that young blood was the sweetest, and the other two held her while he sank his fangs into her struggling, weeping children. When he drank from her, she made no protest, simply lying there while he sucked down her life. When they were all done with them, they cast the bodies away like someone throwing away an empty vessel.
A man in a dark suit and blue shirt lay slumped in a parking lot. One hand was raised above his head, the other crumpled beside him. His eyes were open, but he saw nothing. The overhead lights surrounding the lot were reflected in his dead eyes. There was a two-inch gash on the side of his throat, and a bright head bent over him and lapped eagerly at the blood flowing down his neck.
There were many, many more, and Jessie knew them all in the flash of an instant.
“You’re all damned!” she cried, and this time it was Andy’s voice, deep and clear and strong. “You’re all going to die, and you’ll spend eternity alone.”
The girl closest to her screamed and backed away from Jessie, her hand over her mouth. The next voice that came from her mouth was achingly familiar, and Jessie would weep later at the remembrance of it.
“I trusted you all, and so I died,” Kira shouted. “But you won’t go unpunished. My Jessie will punish you.”
And many voices shrieking of vengeance poured from Jessie, as if she were only a receptacle to hold angry souls. Her whole body shook, and she strained hard to keep from losing herself in the deluge of emotion.
“Steady,” Mom said, but the voice wasn’t inside Jessie now. It was right beside her, as was her mother. A small, ancient woman with skin like crumpled brown paper, a magnificent hooked nose, and a coronet of dark braids stood on Jessie’s other side. The two women stood shoulder to shoulder with Jessie in the room full of milling, violent strangers.
Blood Worship (Chasing Vampires) Page 12
