Rule of Vampire (7 page)

#

She was running out of lowlife dives to try. It was becoming clear to her that she was going to have to leave this town soon, as much as she loved her little hideaway. Too many abusive boyfriends and husbands were mysteriously disappearing, though strangely, no one seemed to be reporting it. Still, someone was eventually going to catch on to the fact. Officer Robert Jurgenson was going to remember that incident on the beach and put two and two together.

There was a bar downtown she hadn’t tried, a little more upscale than most of the places she’d been. She dressed in the best clothes she had, but when she got there, she still felt a little out of place.

As soon as she sat down, she sensed someone standing next to her table. She looked up with a tacked-on smile to see Officer Jurgenson smiling down at her, as if thinking of him earlier had summoned him. He was wearing khakis and a dress shirt and looked like the man of her dreams.

“May I sit down?” he asked politely.

Jamie was speechless. All her usual patter abandoned her. She didn’t want to be phony with this man, but she wasn’t sure she remembered how to be genuine.

He ordered them drinks, whiskey sours, before she could stop him. “Is that OK?” he asked, as if belatedly worried that he’d been too forward.

“Fine,” she said. “My favorite.”

“You dyed your hair,” he observed.

“I wanted to start having more fun,” she said, flipping her blonde locks, and he chuckled.

Then they just sat and looked at each other for a while. The silence was awkward, and yet… it wasn’t. It was as if both of them knew that they’d be chatting away like old friends in no time, and they were savoring the moment of introduction for as long as possible.

When the drinks were delivered, they touched glasses and both took a sip.

“So… I might as well get this out of the way,” Jurgenson said. “That night on the beach––why’d you run away?”

“What did Stuart say?” Jamie asked. Jurgenson hadn’t arrested her; he hadn’t even seemed disconcerted to see her.
So obviously, I’m not in trouble,
she thought.

“He said he cut himself and fainted, and that you were trying to revive him. I thought the kid was going to die. In fact, the paramedics tell me his heart actually stopped for a few minutes. They had all but given up on him when he suddenly sat up, looking none the worse for wear. Which was pretty strange, considering how much blood he lost. Perkins told me, ‘The IV transfusion seemed to flow into the kid as if he was sucking it up.’”

Why
had
she run away? What possible excuse could she give? Jamie thought hard, but couldn’t come up with a plausible story. She was starting to get nervous when Jurgenson said, “You know what? Never mind. None of my business.”

She smiled at him, no longer nervous, and let it go. “So, how long have you lived in Crescent City?” she asked, and off they went, chattering the night away.

#

“Can I take you home?” Jurgenson asked much later as they stood outside the bar.

“Not tonight,” Jamie said, hinting that the night would come when she’d want him to. It was strange, how she had almost forgotten what she was. She’d started off the evening proclaiming
I am a vampire
, but ended it feeling more human than she had since… since she wasn’t.

“OK.” Jurgenson didn’t look put out. He seemed to understand that the evening had been a smashing success and to be willing to go at whatever pace Jamie dictated.
My hero,
she thought.

Suddenly, he turned pale and bent over. Just like that, he was puking at her feet. There was blood mixed in with the whiskey sours.

“Jesus, I’m sorry,” he rasped, still bent over. “That was awful.”

“No, it’s OK!” Jamie said, concerned. “Are you all right?”

“Yeah. Most of the whiskey went to waste, though,” he said, trying to smile.

“No… I really mean it. Are you all right?”

Jurgenson was standing straight again, though he was still pale. Jamie saw a flicker of doubt cross his face. Then he sighed. “I can’t imagine why I’m saying this. It’s got to be the worst first date in history. But somehow I feel like I owe it to you.”

Again, he hesitated.

Jamie had already figured out his secret, but she also sensed that he needed to say it. “Tell me,” she said softly.

“Well, the long and short of it is… don’t get too attached to me. I’m sorta dying. Stomach cancer.”

Despite knowing this already, Jamie felt the shock of the statement.

“I feel like a total heel, getting to know you only to dump this on you,” Jurgenson continued. “I think we’d better not see each other again. That would be totally unfair to you. As soon as you realize how devastatingly attractive I am, I’ll been taking my charms away forever.”

“Too late,” she said.

He nodded miserably.

“Since we can’t waste any time,” she said, “can I go home with you?”

#

Jamie never went back to the hideaway. Jurgenson––no, Robert: he was Robert to her now––had been married before, and his ex-wife had left her clothes behind. “She ran off with some rich guy,” he explained. “She didn’t need them anymore.” They fit Jamie perfectly.

She moved in that night.

“I’m a little weird,” she said the next morning as Robert got up to go to work. “I usually don’t get up until really late, and I go to bed really late, too. Is that all right with you?”

He laughed. “Darling, you never have to leave here at all if you don’t want to.”

While he was gone, she went around the house and removed the mirrors, and hid them in the back of the giant walk-in closet in the bedroom, the same closet the ex’s clothing was in and which she’d already figured out he never entered. Now she just had to avoid being in the bathroom at the same time as him.

Within a couple of days, they had worked out a routine. Jamie didn’t stir when Robert left for work, but was waiting for him with dinner ready when he came home. They went out after dinner, and when they got home, she kept him up a little later than he was accustomed to, but he managed to convey––in the best way possible––that he was good with their late-night gymnastics.

But on the third night, Robert was too ill to go anywhere, and he called in sick the next day. Jamie nursed him throughout the morning.

As he finally fell into a troubled sleep, it occurred to her that she had a solution to his problem. She could cure him––forever.

That posed a dilemma. She wouldn’t “cure” him without asking.

And she couldn’t ask without revealing what she was.

Chapter 11

“Where have you been?” Terrill exclaimed. “Everyone thinks you’re dead.”

“Good,” Michael said. “Just as I wanted.”

They stood in the middle of the homeless men’s hideaway and stared at each other.

Again, Michael held out his arms, and this time Terrill hugged him. “You left me alone for a long time,” he said into his Maker’s shoulder. “None of the other vampires had the slightest notion of what I was trying to do.”

Michael let him go and stepped back. “What did you expect? None of them have the experience we have. Most of them won’t feel what we feel for a thousand years yet.”

“Horsham never did,” Terrill said quietly.

“That was disappointing, I admit,” Michael said. “It’s not just about age, apparently.” He sat down in one of the wicker chairs and looked around. “So this is where your progeny is hiding?” he said, sounding curious. “Well, we’ve lived in worse places in our time, haven’t we?”

Terrill could only vaguely remember those earlier years. When you became a vampire, you forgot being human, and it seemed that the opposite was true, too… though as far as he knew, he alone had made the change from vampire to human.
Or am I the only one?
he thought, looking at his Maker. “How did you get here in the daylight?” he asked.

“I have found that the older I get––thousands of years older than any other vampire I know of––the more I can tolerate the sun, though I must still be careful,” Michael said. “I have to congratulate you, Terrill. I never even thought about becoming human again. I was simply trying to learn to be a more human vampire.”

“It wasn’t what I set out to do,” Terrill said. “It just happened.”

“No. It wasn’t by mistake.” Michael sounded strong, confident, and inspiring, like the Alpha vampire he had been of old. “You set out to live a moral life, and the moral life came to you. I always thought religion was a bunch of hoo-ha, but maybe there is something to it.”

“Not religion,” Terrill said, “but what religion teaches.”

Michael stared at him as if to say,
I don’t understand.
Then he shrugged. “I wanted to tell you, I really like your Rules of Vampire.”

Terrill blushed. “I just codified what you and I always talked about.”

“Nevertheless, very clever.”

Terrill settled into one of the other chairs and they sat companionably for a while. Michael picked up one of Jamie’s dresses off the floor of the hideaway and sniffed it.

“I met Jamie, you know. I liked her,” he said. “Even as a vampire, she’s got some of her soul left. I’m beginning to believe that the stronger the soul a human has, the more likely that as a vampire, they will behave decently. Maybe that’s been our problem all along: we’re Turning the dregs of humanity, and thus they become the dregs of vampire society.”

Again they sat in companionable silence.
How strange
, Terrill thought.
It’s just like old times, even though it’s been hundreds of years since we last saw each other.

But things
had
changed, and they couldn’t afford to simply sit around. Terrill cleared his throat. “They’ll be expecting me back,” he said, but what he really wanted to say was,
Why are you here, Michael?
After all this time, why are you here?

“So the Council of Vampires has finally approached you,” Michael said, and the tone of his voice made it clear he was at last getting down to business.

“Finally?” Terrill echoed.

“It was inevitable. I’ve been waiting for it. If only you hadn’t been so damn good at hiding yourself, it would’ve happened a long time ago. Even I lost you for a time. If it wasn’t for Horsham, you might still be in hiding.”

“You
want
me to join the Council?” Terrill asked.

“Yes,” Michael said, “but not for the reasons they think. They’ve taken your Rules of Vampire and perverted them. What you and I never realized is that to those without a soul, without a smidgen of conscience, the Rules are only legalisms, excuses to manipulate others. Vampires have always avoided giving such powers to other vampires––but the Council has grown so strong that they’re slowly taking over.”

“Would that be such a bad thing?” Terrill asked. “If they enforce the Rules, how can that be a bad thing?”

“Rule Five,” Michael intoned. “Never kill for the thrill. Feed only when necessary to eat.”

Terrill nodded.

Michael raised his eyebrows as if to say
, See the problem
? “What does that mean, exactly? It’s a judgment call––and if you have no judgment, then anyone can be guilty of breaking Rule Five, and anyone can be innocent of breaking it, too.”

“True,” Terrill conceded.

“Or take Rule Four: Never create a pattern. Kill at random,” Michael continued. “Again, what does that mean? What is a pattern? What is random?” He waved his hand in the air. “Any of the Rules can be interpreted in any way the enforcer wants. You and I understand what these Rules mean, because you and I
care
what they mean––we want them to work. They come from inside us; they’re not enforced from the outside. Without that inner guidance––what humans call ethics––the Rules don’t mean anything. Worse, they can be perverted to evil ends.” Michael laughed ruefully. “And we vampires don’t need any excuses for that.”

Michael stood up and waited for Terrill to stand as well. “You’re the only one who can stop them,” he said gravely.

“What can I do?” Terrill said. “I’m only human.”

“Well… about that.”

Terrill felt a chill. “No,” he said.

“You can’t fight them as a human. Only as the old Terrill, the most powerful living vampire, can you fight them.”

“Don’t you mean second-most powerful vampire?”

Michael smiled at him. “I wonder. And as far as they know, I’m dead. There is no way around it: you must become vampire again. Vampire… and something more. I’ve been researching this for centuries, Terrill, and I now believe that you were not the first to have made such a conversion. Long, long ago, there was another. The other vampires couldn’t stand to see it, and they tried to Turn him back. But he emerged as something different: a hybrid, stronger than both species. He kept his humanity, he could walk in the daylight, but he had all the powers of a vampire. Only thus can you defeat them.”

No,
Terrill thought.
I’d rather die.

“You have no choice, Terrill,” Michael continued sternly. “They’ll force you to join them in any event. But you’ll be powerless, a figurehead––the great Terrill, the Maker of the Rules of Vampire, giving his approval to all of the Council’s actions.”

Terrill shook his head, still resistant. There was another option, and he was prepared to take it. He could give up his life and be thankful for the time he’d been granted. He was mortal. He never wanted to be vampire again.

Michael watched him sadly. “Don’t you understand? The Council will take Sylvie. That’s their edge. They know that you love her. You’re human now, Terrill. If you were vampire, you might be able to walk away. But not now––not from the woman you love.”

So it was that Terrill gave up his life a second time.

Chapter 12

Stuart figured out what he was pretty quickly. When he walked out of his house the next morning into the sunlight, his skin started crinkling and turning black, and then the pain hit and he dove back through the doorway with a yelp, startling his parents, who were sitting at the breakfast table.