Heather Graham - Night of the Vampires

Facade.

MEGAN STOOD IN the middle of the cemetery, feeling the faint stirring of the breeze and looking around, wondering where to begin. The cemetery was relatively new. And yet, it was new at a time when the death toll was staggering. Across the country—or both countries—women waited at railroad stations for the post to come in, to read the lists of newly fallen, and pray that their beloved husbands, sons and brothers were not on those lists.

Many injured returned home. And died.

Disease was rampant.

Prospect Hill had been created when the law had stated that new burials must take place beyond city boundaries for such reasons. Technically, it was owned by the Men’s Evangelical Society of Concordia Church; it had been consecrated in 1858, and it officially opened the following year. It wasn’t a soldier’s cemetery, but since Washington had been the staging ground for the First Battle of Bull Run, as the Union called it, the First Manassas, as the Confederates called it, many local sons had died very early on.

Now graves were dug in expectation, but those who had been destined to reside within them might never do so. Exigencies meant that far too many men had to be buried where they fell. Some remains would be retrieved at later dates; some would remain where they had fallen forever.

She was alone with Cole on the mission; the day was not long enough for their small party to cover the many places that came to mind after they had attended to the victims who had been murdered during the night. It had been Cole himself who finally realized that they needed to split up, and since it seemed most prudent that she and Cody be split—since they could easily endure the bite of a vampire and return to tell any tale—he had either begun to trust her, or he’d still rather risk himself than Brendan Vincent.

“Where do we begin,” Cole murmured at her side, looking out across the vast and lonely expanse of the grounds.

“I think we need to wait a moment. There are several families here—look, just behind that little hill. There are people at that grave.”

He nodded. “It’s very new. No marker as yet.” She was startled when he suddenly took her arm. “Let’s stroll. We’ll appear to be seeking the grave of a father or brother.”

She nodded, surprised to feel a sensation of quickening within her, and aware of the warmth in his form, the strength of his hold.

“So,” he said. “Not long ago, I wouldn’t have believed that I could ask such a thing, but…did you always know that you were a vampire?”

He asked the question lightly, as if it were casual conversation.

“To tell you the truth, I’m not sure exactly what we are, Cody and I,” she replied. “I can be injured, and I do age. I heal overnight when I am injured, that’s true. And I have survived when I should have died. But I have a heart that beats, I breathe.”

He paused, looking down at her, and she was surprised that he almost seemed to be smiling. “That’s—wonderful. But it’s not the answer to my question.”

She shrugged. “Well, I don’t remember my infancy. I remember that I was always extremely fond of a rare steak, and that my mother always had me drink a strange concoction. I suppose the day she actually talked to me was when I was very young and had been punished at school.”

“For what?”

“Samuel Reeves.”

“You were punished because…”

“Samuel was a bully. He was always teasing my friend Sally, who limped. She’d been born with one leg a bit shorter than the other. Samuel teased her horribly. And he was cruel to her. He’d walk by and make her drop her books. He’d trip her.”

“Ah. Not at all a gentleman,” Cole noted.

“One day he sat behind her. He didn’t just dip her hair in an inkwell—he managed to jump up and dump the entire thing all over her. He pretended it was all a massive mistake and he didn’t even get in trouble. So, when we were out playing and he started calling her Blue Face, I charged him. He and I started to fight and there were kids all around us, cheering for one or the other of us. He started to take a real swing at me and I ducked and then…”

“And then?”

“I bit him.”

“And what happened? Children do bite when they’re tussling on the school grounds.”

She shook her head, looking straight before her, and then meeting his eyes again.

“I liked it. I liked the flow of his blood into my mouth, and I didn’t want to let him go. Our teacher had to get help to drag me off him, and when my mother came for me…she was horrified and upset, and she sat me down that afternoon and told me about my father, but she said that he was a good man, and that…I had to use my powers for good, as well.”

“You believe that your father is a good man—still?”

“You don’t—do you? Nor does Cody. But I believe it with all my heart.”

“Why?”

“Because my mother was a good woman, and she wouldn’t have lied to me.”

Cole lifted her chin, and his touch was gentle. He stood there, studying her eyes.

“You believe in Cody, don’t you? I believed in him before I met him. When I read the articles in the papers about the outlaws in the West—I knew that Cody was the son my mother had told my father about.”

Cole laughed. “The name Cody Fox didn’t tell you that?”

“Fox is a common enough name,” she said.

Cole still seemed to be wearing a dry half smile. “What happened to Samuel Reeves?” he asked.

“Nothing. He stayed home from school for a few days—sick. I was punished for the rest of the year—I wasn’t allowed to play with the other children. But, Samuel never teased my friend Sally again. Ever.”

“And did you bite anyone else? Ever?”

“Only when I’ve had to—and only in self-defense, and only vampires.”

“They’re leaving,” Cole said, pointing ahead. Visitors who had been praying at graves were heading for the gates.

“We’ll have to split up and start walking fast,” Megan said. The ever-so-slightly-civil-almost-tender moment they had shared was gone. He had become all business. She could certainly do the same. “Look for disturbed earth.”

“I know what I’m doing. You head easterly, and I’ll go west. Try to keep visual contact with me.”

“Of course. I won’t let you get hurt,” she promised sweetly.

“You’re Cody’s sister. I’ll look after you ,” he responded over his shoulder.

“As you like, cowboy,” she said lightly, aware that her teasing response was patronizing but unable to help herself from making the statement. She didn’t want anyone getting hurt looking after her; she was what she was.

She was alarmed to realize that the day was quickly waning. And it was disheartening to know that they had fought so hard the day before—and that at least one of the creatures had escaped.

She could see Cole at a distance, long strides taking him swiftly across the cemetery. She saw when he paused and reached into his coat for one of his slender honed stakes, then switched it backward to dig in the ground.

She waited to see if he had made a discovery.

He had.

She watched as he swiftly found the mallet in his inner coat pocket, and slammed the stake downward, honed side first. He drew out his bowie knife and she turned her head.

It seemed that he was quite competent at what he did. He was seeing to it that for certain the creature would not come back. If diseased men had died, they were vampires, or would be soon, and they couldn’t be given a chance to rise again.

There was a group of trees ahead of her and she continued walking toward them. As she neared the little copse, she felt her muscles suddenly stiffen, and it seemed that the breeze blew chill against her flesh.