Her Dear and Loving Husband (26 page)

“I didn’t ask to be this way,” James said. 

“Who asks to be this way?”   

“I didn’t know what I was! A stranger had to tell me what I was! I didn’t know anything about living this way.”

“You figured it out.”         

“I didn’t have a choice!”

“That’s right, and when one doesn’t have a choice one either rises to the challenge or one doesn’t. It’s survival of the fittest, even for our kind.”

As James raged the thought of decapitating the insufferable Geoffrey crossed his mind. Sarah backed away from them. James saw her tense stance behind the sofa so he closed his eyes, concentrating until he visualized the red-faced outrage melting into a white wonderland of peace-filled snow. He wouldn’t allow her to see him that way.    

“What do you want?” he asked Geoffrey. “Why are you here?” He wanted this unwelcome presence gone, never to see him again.

“Come now,” said Geoffrey, “let’s be friends, shall we? I didn’t come round to rehash tales from olden times to upset you. You’re hardly suffering. Really, you’re doing quite well for yourself. You have this nice wooden house. You have that nice job at the college. And you’ve made friends with this perfectly nice little human person. What is your name, little human person?”

“Sarah,” she said. 

“That’s right, Sarah. You’ve made friends with Sarah. And I am intrigued.”

Geoffrey studied her again, and James saw a lightning spark in the black eyes. Geoffrey flashed to Sarah, but James reached her first. James pushed her back, away from the ridiculous vampire, ready to fight to the death to protect her.

“Don’t you dare get that close to her. You will not touch her!”

“I told you I wasn’t going to hurt her. I just wanted a closer look. When I found you outside the jail that night you were upset about your wife. I saw her after she died, did you know that?”

“I don’t know anything. I never saw you again until tonight.”

“Let’s not start that again. I only meant that a few nights after I turned you I heard your wife was gravely ill so I went round to see her, this woman you loved so much you made yourself vampire bait over her. I was going to turn her, but by the time I arrived at the jail there was nothing left to turn. I remember her because even dead she was quite lovely to look at, and it’s only this moment it dawned on me. This is her, isn’t it. This Sarah is your wife.”

James didn’t know what to say. How could he explain to this stranger the journey he and Sarah had traveled to make that discovery for themselves? Sarah took his hand, watching him with wide eyes. 

“You don’t have to say anything,” Geoffrey said. “I can see it’s true.” For once he didn’t have that smirk on his face. “I’m certain there are others of our kind who would like to find their loved ones again.”

“What do you want, Geoffrey?” James asked again. 

Geoffrey became serious. “I want to know what you know about Kenneth Hempel. I know you know him.”

James was shocked to hear the reporter’s name. Hempel had not been seen or heard around campus for a few weeks. James thought the reporter must have been laying low since his tease of an article appeared in the
News
. There were enough negative comments on the newspaper’s blog from people certain Hempel had lost his mind, some even calling for his immediate dismissal. And James had been so caught up in the joy of starting his life with Sarah that he had actually forgotten about the annoying little man and his insistent pursuit.

“How do you know I know him?” James asked. 

“We live in a small world and we like to talk.”

James looked at Sarah, concerned because she didn’t know anything about how Hempel was hunting him.  

“Who is Kenneth Hempel?” she asked.

“A mutual acquaintance,” James said. He took her hand and stroked her fingers. “You look tired,” he said. “Why don’t you go back to bed. Everything is fine. Geoffrey and I will be finished talking in a few minutes.”

She looked at James, then Geoffrey, then back at James. “All right,” she said. She looked at Geoffrey once more before she went into to the bedroom. James closed the door behind her.

“The human doesn’t know,” Geoffrey said.

“No.” James closed his eyes as he considered what to say. “I don’t know much about him. He’s a reporter for
The Salem News
, and he’s taken it upon himself to expose the truth about us.”

“I’ve heard he’s been harassing you. Is this true?”

“Yes.”

“Why you?”

“I don’t know. He must have seen or heard something. Why do you want to know?”

“Because he’s been snooping, and humans should never snoop when they don’t know what they’re dealing with. There are many of our kind who are upset with this person, some who are eager to do away with him before he goes public with some real information. Humans cannot know about us. It will cause too many problems.”

“That’s what I’ve always said,” James said.

“See, there’s something we agree on. We’re not so different after all.”

James laughed at the thought. “Tempting as it is, you can’t just do away with him. He has young children. Besides, people will become suspicious if something violent suddenly happens to him after that article he wrote.”

“That’s been my argument as well, but I’m afraid the angry ones aren’t listening. Some of our kind are more instinct than reason, but you know what that’s like. Many never find their self-control again as you did. You must talk this Hempel person out of his hunt straight away. It’s for his safety as well as ours.” 

“I don’t need you to show up after three hundred years to tell me what to do,” James said. “I have it under control. I know how to handle him.”

“Do tell.”

“It would be best if I didn’t.”

Geoffrey nodded as he opened the door. “You’re proactive. I like that in a vampling.” He smiled that smile again. “It’s been good seeing you again, James. Really, you’re doing quite well for yourself.” He stepped outside and turned back. “I’ll be in touch.”

As the visitor disappeared at a flash James wondered if it would be another three hundred years before he saw him again. 

CHAPTER 21

James walked quickly to the library, nearly springing up the steps ten at a time. He knew he had to settle down so he wouldn’t draw attention to himself. He didn’t want any problems that night. Everything, after so long, was falling into place. Sarah had been the missing piece, and now she was there, the picture complete. He knew she was inside the library, waiting, as anxious to see him as he was to see her. He knew she would smile when she saw him, and how he loved to see her smile, a sweet, beautiful smile that hadn’t changed at all in over three hundred years. He wanted everyone to feel, at least once, the openhearted happiness, the looking-forward joy he felt then. When he was alive, until close to the end of his life, he was an optimistic person, a man looking forward to something new every day. He looked for challenge. He looked for adventure. He abandoned everything and everyone he knew in London for a precarious journey across a dangerous ocean to an undiscovered country. He wasn’t afraid. He was thrilled by the potential. And he had been lucky. His father’s merchant business thrived in Massachusetts. He married for love, and everything he did he did for that love. Now he was feeling the return of his former optimism. 

So this is what it’s like to look forward to seeing the woman I love, he thought. I had forgotten. It’s been oh so very long.

He stopped short at the front entrance, his senses alert, when he heard the heavy, plodding footsteps approach from the parking lot. He wouldn’t let on that he knew anyone was behind him. If this hunter wanted to catch him acting as anything other than human he would be disappointed. James pushed on the library door and stepped one foot inside.

“Professor Wentworth. Good evening.”

James turned around, his face a pleasant mask. “Mr. Hempel, my own personal stalker. I don’t know if I should be flattered or call the authorities and take out a restraining order against you.”

“I don’t think that’s necessary, Professor. I hardly think there’s much I could do to harm you. Do you mind?” Hempel gestured toward a stone bench behind some shrubs near the parking lot. “I’d like to speak to you somewhere more secluded. Just a moment of your time.”

James followed the reporter to the bench, his fingers clenched in his pockets. What if Hempel knew the truth? What if he had some convincing proof? Or what if he didn’t, but he named names anyway? James wondered if the news would start a new hunt in Salem, only this time the target was really there.

And, more importantly, would he expose himself by going outside in the sun?  He still couldn’t piece together one cohesive story about the extent of the risk. Just as Jocelyn said, some believed the sun liquidated them as soon as they stepped into the light. Some believed they disintegrated into dust. Others believed it was painfully uncomfortable because of their dilated eyes but not necessarily deadly. They might become weak. A rare few, like him, tried to go out during the day but they were turned away by the blinding pain.

James’s hope that the problem would disappear vanished into the intensity in the reporter’s eyes, which blazed with the same self-righteous fire James saw in the magistrates in 1692. He recalled the similarities between then and now. But there were differences too. Kenneth Hempel was not a magistrate but a staff reporter for a local newspaper. Hempel didn’t have the law on his side, but he had the ability to sway the court of public opinion, which could prove more deadly in the end. Before, James wouldn’t have hesitated taking the risk. But now he had Sarah. Was his newly found optimism finished already? After their years apart, was this all the time they had together again?

He touched the tree trunk, the bark scratchy and hard. He wouldn’t look at the reporter. He thought his eyes would give his heart away.

“What can I do for you, Mr. Hempel?”

Hempel sat on the stone bench, hidden from view of passers-by by the bushes. “Just a few more questions. I hope you don’t mind.”

“I do mind. I’m tired of being asked about a subject I know nothing about and getting the third degree for my answers. I’m tired of hearing that you’re snooping around campus asking about me.” He faced the reporter. “If you have something to say to me, Mr. Hempel, if you have some accusation to make, I think it would be best if you told me what it is so I know what I have to defend myself against.”

“Very well, then. I know you’re a vampire.”

James held Hempel’s gaze as he spoke. “That is the most outlandish thing anyone has ever said to me. What could you have seen that would convince you of something so preposterous? I’d hate to think being out at night gets you labeled a vampire. There are a lot of people out at night, Mr. Hempel. You have your work cut out for you.”

“It doesn’t mean you’re a vampire if you’re always out at night, but it might mean you’re a vampire if you’re never out during the day. I know this must be hard for you, learning that some human has discovered your secret. You’ve obviously kept it well hidden. But the right answer is always there if you’re willing to look for it. The truth always prevails.”

“Does it? Because I can think of a few times when the truth didn’t matter at all.”

“I’m sure you’ve witnessed a lot over the years.”  

James turned away. He felt a blind heat bubbling up from his feet to his legs to his chest, radiating out to his arms, and he let the breeze floating through the branches of the tree cool his frustration.

Hempel held out his hands. “Look, Professor, it seems we’ve ended on the wrong foot and that was not my intention. People scoff at the idea of vampires and toss them carelessly into the category of myths and legends, but they need to be warned if there are threats to their lives lurking unseen in the darkness. They have a right to know you exist. After all, not everyone of your kind has the self-control you do. Some are savage, intent on wreaking havoc and murdering innocent people.”

James let out a frustrated sigh. “You seem to be an intelligent man, Mr. Hempel. Do you really believe in vampires?”

“I’ve known the truth since I was fifteen years old. You see, my father was killed by a vampire. I was there and I saw it. I was lucky I wasn’t killed myself.”

James sat on the bench. In one glance he saw that the reporter spoke the truth. But James needed to convince him that the truth was false.   

“Are you sure it was a vampire you saw? You must have been terrified when you saw your father being attacked, and our minds tend to play tricks to protect us from trauma like that. It was probably a wild animal you saw, and in your fear you thought…”

“Do not mock me!”

Hempel leapt from the stone bench and glowered, his eyes large and reaching, the purple veins in his neck bulging. He was too close for James’s comfort, and James stepped back. Hempel seemed to expand upward in his anger.

“I was there! I saw it!” The reporter leaned forward, his hands on his knees. “I’m sorry,” he said. “This always happens whenever I think about that night.” When he was calm enough to breathe easily he looked at James. “My father grew up near Walden Woods. I believe you’re familiar with it, Professor?”

“Henry David Thoreau wrote
Walden
there.”

“That’s correct. My father wanted me to see where he had spent so many hours of his childhood, so he took me camping in some secluded grounds nearby. It was late at night and my father was sitting alone outside the tent, watching the stars, searching for the constellations the way he loved to. He considered himself something of an amateur astronomer. I was in my sleeping bag in the tent waiting for him when suddenly I heard a maniacal growl, like a crazed bobcat on the prowl. Then I heard my father scream, the most horrible sound you can imagine coming from a grown man.” Hempel pulled a handkerchief from his jacket pocket and dabbed at the sweat on his forehead.

“I was terrified, but I wanted to know what was happening so I peeked through the slit at the front of the tent. That’s when I saw him, a white-skinned, blond-haired man-ghost gnashing his teeth into my father’s neck. Actually, the vampire looked a lot like you, Professor. There he was with my father in his arms, sucking the blood right out of him. By then my father wasn’t struggling any more. His life was gone along with his blood. If it hadn’t been so horrible it would have been almost tender the way the vampire looked like a newborn suckling from its mother. Do you know what it looks like to see a vampire drinking from a loved one?”