Лиза Смит - The Return - Midnight

It was only then that Meredith was stricken by a fact. The Saitou family knew that Meredith, Matt, and Bonnie were friends. But none of them had asked about either Bonnie or Matt.

Strange.

If she had only known how much stranger her visit with her own family would be…

Meredith usually found her parents funny and silly and dear. They were solemn about all the wrong things like, “Make sure, honey, that you really get to know Alaric — before — before—” Meredith had no doubts about Alaric at all, but he was another of those silly, dear, gallant people, who talked all around things without getting to the point.

Today, she was surprised to see that there was no cluster of cars around the ancestral home. Maybe people had to stay home to fight it out with their own children. She locked the Acura, conscious of the precious contents given by Isobel, and rang the doorbell. Her parents believed in chain locks.

Janet, the housekeeper, looked happy to see her but nervous. Aha, Meredith thought, they have discovered that their dutiful only child has ransacked the attic.

Maybe they want the stave back. Maybe I should have left it back at the boardinghouse.

But she only realized that things were truly serious when she came into the family room and saw the big La-Z-Boy deluxe lounging chair, her father’s throne: empty.

Her father was sitting on the couch, holding her mother, who was sobbing.

She had brought the stave with her, and when her mother saw it, she broke into a fresh burst of tears.

“Look,” Meredith said, “this doesn’t have to be so tragic. I’ve got a pretty good idea of what happened. If you want to tell me about how Grandma and I really got hurt, that’s your business. But if I was…contaminated in some way…”

She stopped. She could hardly believe it. Her father was holding out an arm to her, as if the somewhat rank condition of her clothes didn’t matter. She went to him slowly, uncomfortably, and let him hug her regardless of his Armani suit. Her mother had a glass with a few sips left of what looked like Coke in front of her, but Meredith would bet it wasn’t all Coke.

“We’d hoped that this was a place of peace,” her father orated. Every sentence her father spoke was an oration. You got used to it. “We never dreamed…” And then he stopped. Meredith was stunned. Her father didn’t stop in the middle of an oration. He didn’t pause. And he certainly didn’t cry.

“Dad! Daddy! What is it? Have kids been around here, crazy kids? Did they hurt somebody?”

“We have to tell you the whole story from that time long ago,” her father…said.

He spoke with such despair that it wasn’t anything like an oration. “When you were…all attacked.”

“By the vampire. Or Grandfather. Or do you know?”

Long pause. Then her mother drained the contents of her glass and called, “Janet, another one, please.”

“Now, Gabriella—” her father said, chiding.

“’Nando — I can’t bear this. The thought that mi hija inocente…”

Meredith said, “Look, I think I can make this easier for you. I already know…well, first, that I had a twin brother.”

Her parents looked horrified. They clung together, gasping. “Who told you?” her father demanded. “At that boardinghouse, who could know—?”

Calming down time. “No, no. Dad, I found out — well, Grandpa talked to me.” That was true enough. He had. Just not about her brother. “Anyway, that was how I got the stave. But the vampire that hurt us is dead. He was the serial killer, the one who killed Vickie and Sue. His name was Klaus.”

“You thought that there was only one vampire?” her mother got out. She pronounced the word the Hispanic way, which Meredith always found more scary.

Vahm-peer.

The universe seemed to start moving slowly around Meredith.

“That’s just a guess,” her father said. “We don’t really know that there was more than the very strong one.”

“But you know about Klaus — how?”

“We saw him. He was the strong one. He killed the security guards at the gate with one blow each. We moved to a new town. We hoped you would never have to know you had a brother.” Her father brushed his eyes. “Your grandfather spoke to us, right after the attack. But the next day…nothing. He couldn’t talk at all.”

Her mother put her face in her hands. She only lifted it to call, “Janet! Another, por favor!”

“Right away, ma’am.” Meredith looked to the housekeeper’s blue eyes for the solution to this mystery and found nothing — sympathy, but no help. Janet walked away with the empty glass, blond French braid receding.

Meredith turned back to her parents, so dark of eye and hair, so olive of skin color. They were huddling together again, eyes on her.

“Mom, Dad, I know that this is really hard. But I’m going after the kind of people who hurt Grandpa, and Grandma, and my brother. It’s dangerous, but I have to do it.” She dropped into a Taekwondo stance. “I mean you did have me trained.”

“But against your own family? You could do that?” her mother cried.

Meredith sat down. She had reached the end of the memories that she and Stefan had found. “So Klaus didn’t kill him like Grandmother. He took my brother with him.”

“Cristian,” wailed her mother. “He was just un bebé. Three years old! That was when we found the two of you…and the blood…oh, the blood…”

Her father got up, not to orate, but to put his hand on Meredith’s shoulder. “We thought it would be easier not to tell you — that you wouldn’t have any memories of what was happening when we came in. And you don’t, do you?”

Meredith’s eyes were filling with tears. She looked to her mother, trying to silently tell her she couldn’t understand this.

“He was drinking my blood?” she guessed. “Klaus?”

“No!” cried her father as her mother whispered prayers.

“He was drinking Cristian’s, then.” Meredith was kneeling on the floor now, trying to look up into the face of her mother.

“No!” cried her father again. He choked.

“La sangre!” gasped her mother, covering her eyes. “The blood!”

“Querida—” her father sobbed, and went to her.

“Dad!” Meredith went after him and shook his arm. “You’ve ruled out all the possibilities! I don’t understand! Who was drinking blood?”

“You! You!” her mother almost screamed. “From your own brother! Oh, el aterrorizar!”

“Gabriella!” moaned her father.

Meredith’s mother subsided into weeping.

Meredith’s head was whirling. “I’m not a vampire! I hunt vampires and kill them!”

“He said,” her father whispered hoarsely: “‘Just see she gets a tablespoon a week. If you want her to live, that is. Try a blood pudding.’ He was laughing.”

Meredith didn’t need to ask if they had obeyed. At her house, they had blood sausage or pudding at least once a week. She had grown up with it. It was nothing special.

“Why?” she whispered hoarsely now. “Why didn’t he kill me?”

“I don’t know! We still don’t know! That man with his front all dripping with bloodyour blood, your brother’s blood, we didn’t know! And then at the last minute he grabbed for the two of you but you bit his hand to the bone,” her father said.

“He laughed — laughed! — with your teeth clamped in him and your little hands pushing him away, and said, ‘I’ll just leave you this one, then, and you can worry about what she will turn out to be. The boy I’m taking with me.’ And then suddenly I seemed to come out of a spell, for I was reaching for you again, ready to fight him for both of you. But I couldn’t! Once I had you, I couldn’t move another inch. And he left the house still laughing — and took your brother, Cristian, with him.”