The Vampires of Soldiers Cove (18 page)

“No, they knew that was going to happen eventually,” he looked the other way biting his lip thinking that he had said too much. He didn’t know that Holly had spilled his secret. “I mean since I’m your guardian and all, they figured they’d probably meet you sometime.”

“Is that really why she pulled you aside?” I wanted him to spit out the truth.

“Well, no not really.” He confessed after a pause.

“What then?”

“She heard we were sharing a room at the sanctuary.” She heard I was shacking up with her son. A no good French Acadian vampire I’m sure is what she was really thinking.

“How did she know?”

“She didn’t say. Holly and my mom talk a lot though. And I did…mention it to Holly.”

“What did you say to your mom when she told you she knew?”

“I told her I…” love you, was the end of the sentence I wanted to hear, “needed to be close to you. That I was afraid for your safety” another long pause, “and that I…”

Spit it out
I thought.

“that I care for you very much.
I didn’t want to tell her that we’re…together… just yet.”

“Is that all we are?
Together
? That sounds so, I don’t know, temporary.”  He was looking slightly panicked now, not wanting to say the wrong thing.

“Oh no, not at all.
Rachel there are things I have wanted to say to you, things I need to tell you. There’s so much you don’t know. You were sick for so long…” he trailed off. “I don’t want you think I’m just using you while we’re working on this together.”

“It’s ok
,” I squeezed his hand, “everything will reveal itself in time. I care for you too.” That made him smile. Without a word he drew me against him and gave me a sweet and lingering kiss.

“We better get going
,” he sighed regretting we did not have more time for an idle make out session. I felt the same, it was becoming harder and harder to tear myself away.

Chapter Twenty

Sometime later, after quite a long drive, we were finally making our way over the Seal Island Bridge and heading up Kelly’s Mountain. I remembered coming here as a child and how my ears had popped when we were almost at the top. Gavin was driving like a bat out of hell on the narrow, curvy road and the needle on the McLaren was burying itself.

“We’re going to fly off Kelly’s Mountain,” I said.

“You do know you’re immortal right?” Somehow that didn’t make me feel better.

“I’m immortal and you’re immortal but I don’t think the deer and the other drivers are.” Gavin sighed and
slowed to a normal speed.

“Fine, I’ll save the fun for when we make the trip back down,” he smiled.

“Remind me to take a gravol before we descend.” The further up the mountain we got the more beautiful everything was. It was early spring and even just out of the winter months the mountains of Cape Breton were beautiful and lush.

People came from all over the world for just a taste of this little piece of heaven.

Gavin parked the car and we stood on the look off gazing at the bridge we had just come across. We were at the top of the mountain now and could appreciate its full beauty. It really was magic. I promised myself I’d come back when I had more time to appreciate it, perhaps in the summer when I could stand up here and feel the warmth of the sun on my face, or in the fall when the leaves changed. I could picture the brilliant burst of color going all the way down.  

It was time to get down to business now however.
“So, how do we find Duncan?”

Gavin
must have been just as in awe of the view as I was because I seemed to interrupt his thoughts. “Humm? I’m not sure yet. Maybe we could ask around.”

“Oh sure.
‘Excuse me sir but have you seen a one thousand year old vampire who never comes out of his cabin in the woods’?”

“Don’t be such a smart ass,” he
smirked. “Let’s go for a walk in the brush, see if I can track him. If he’s fed recently I might be able to pick up some blood.”

“If there
’s more than Duncan in the way of vampires in this area we might follow the wrong scent though and end up with the wrong vampire. That could be dangerous. We don’t directly or indirectly know anyone in this territory.”

“That’s true, but I don’t see how else we could...”

“Well, well, well,” somebody behind us said with the thickest Scottish accent I have ever heard. “Cadama Howe.” 

We turned to face a man who looked like he was in his eighties, but robust and ‘spry’ as people around here like to put it, when they saw an old person who seemed younger than their years. “Is it I you’re looking for?”

We stood there with our mouths hanging open. “Speak for the lova God. Don’t stand there catching flies.”

“Duncan?” Gavin said tentatively.

“Tis I. Duncan Archie MacNeil at your service. Are ye come in search of food? I knew you were coming to see me but I haven’t been able to get the reason why.”

“No, not food.
We’ve come from Soldiers Cove, Angus sent us.” Duncan’s face lit up.

“Old Angus of Soldiers Cove, how about that?
Boys oh boy just when you think you’ve heard it all.” Just then he spotted the car and gave a whistle. “She’s a fancy one. Do you have her for a reason or do you just like to put on the dog?”

“Just puttin’ on the dog.
I like to drive fast.”

“Good thing you can ne die then.” He laughed long and hard to himself.
“Well, no use standing out here. Follow me, we’ll put on the tea and have a talk.” He bounded into the heavy brush more like a gymnast than a senior citizen. Gavin and I almost lost him a couple of times. He was very old so naturally he was very fast. Finally we made it to a small clearing, literally in the middle of nowhere.

Angus had a very small cabin,
painted yellow with white shutters and white trim around the door. We entered and saw his tiny living room that was tied in with the kitchen. A woodstove was burning and Duncan added another log. The smell of the woodstove filled the house drowning out everything else. He motioned for us to sit in the living room and we perched on the end of a love seat. He placed a TV tray in front of us. Shortly there was tea, made from a kettle that had been boiled on the old wood stove, and maple leaf cookies.

I remembered my great grandmother feeding me maple leaf cookies.
In fact every old person I knew always had some on hand.

Tasting one brought back great memories of a kind lady, and I wondered for a moment if all old people loved Maple Leaf cookies, though surely none were older than Duncan.

He looked at us as we sipped our tea, “A love seat for the lovers. That’s the way it should be,” he said in a matter of fact way.

“Duncan
, my name is Gavin MacDonald and this is Rachel Landry, we’ve come to ask for your help with something urgent.”

“Have you now?” his
Scottish accent was so heavy it was almost hard to make out what he was saying at times. “And what would that be?”

“We have reason to believe that Angus’ brother Samuel is on his way back to Soldiers C
ove and is bringing an army of revenants with him.” Duncan looked like he was stifling a laugh but continued to humor us.

“How do you favor that?”

“Well Rachel here has unique abilities and has communicated with Samuel telepathically on a few occasions.” That piqued his interest.

“Is that right?” Sudd
enly I heard the old vampire’s scotchy accent in my head.

Can ye really be telepathic?
He thought directly at me.

Yes, I can.
I transmitted back.

“Well...fuck me,”
he said using slang that sounded out of place for a sweet old man. He seemed like he was curious and frightened all at once. “I’ve not heard of another like myself in quite some time.”

“She starts fires too,” Gavin offered.
“Telepathically as well of course,” he added when he realized he had just made me sound like a pyromaniac.

“Merciful Christ!
That’s a new one altogether.” A shudder ran through the old vampire. “And you’re only a young one. Imagine the things you’ll do in one and two hundred years.”

“The reason we’ve come is actually because we need your help to harness that power.
Samuel has realized she is listening to his thoughts, which of course makes it useless. The last time she tried he physically struck out at her.”

“Samuel must be very powerful now if that is the case,” Duncan said.

“Yes, and so we found this book that mentions you,” I pulled the book out of my handbag and gave it to Duncan. “It says that you helped a woman hear and share the thoughts of a woman with her sister and that it prevented her death.”

“Aye, I know the story as it is written.
Hold tight of this book, you’ll not find another. Even my copy is gone.” Whether it was gone because it had been lost or it had been confiscated he didn’t say. “What you don’t know is that even though it worked and Annie’s life was saved from her husband, the two ended up connected with each other’s thoughts at random. They would catch a glimpse into each other’s minds now and then for years after.” He stopped and stared out the cabin’s tiny window for a moment.

“I don’t know what it was, but Annie heard something in Adelia’s thoughts that she didn’t like.
This caused a rift between them, and they ended up killing each other.” Just then his eyes closed and it looked like he was gleaning information from some unknown source.

“You want to share your telepathy with him to mask yourself.
Is that right?” he looked directly at me.

“Yes,” I said.

“And you,” he said to Gavin now, “what makes you think you can even accept the gift from her? I don’t sense any telepathy in you.”

“Not with people or
vampires, but with animals. I can read their thoughts and feelings; I can communicate with them in return by sending them images and emotions.”

Duncan smiled, “Ahh, a creature talker are you?
Yes there’s a few of those down your way. Are you related to Margie and John?”

“They are my parents.”

“Well, well, well,” Duncan beamed, “I should have asked who your father was from the beginning. How is old John? And your lovely mother is she well?”

“Yes very, they are out of the
sanctuary for about fifteen years at this go round. They send their best.”

“Lovely,” he said stopping to think for a moment once again.
“I’m not sure if it’s a good idea to see inside the mind of one’s lover. Do you?”

“Why not?” Gavin asked.
The answer seemed obvious to me but Gavin seemed to require an explanation.

“Love comes and love goes.
You go inside the mind of a lover and you might see things you do not want to see in there. Look at what happened with Annie and Adelia. A person’s thoughts should be private from those they are closest to. The only refuge any of us has, vampire or human, is the closed door of our own mind.”

That was truer than any statement I had ever heard
, and I knew it firsthand. Hearing voices and being mentally ill gives you no refuge inside your own mind. That’s how you end up lost and injured in the woods having your wounds licked by a lonely vampire. Gavin looked like he was mulling this truth over. He decided he wasn’t worried.

“Be that as it may,” he said to Duncan
, “we need to learn to do this and do it soon. Samuel has designs not just on Soldiers Cove and the right to clan leadership, but for the whole island. He wants it to become a place where vampires hunt humans openly. He wants to abolish the rules set in place for the killing of innocents.”

“Well truth be known creature talker, I’ve never liked those rules either.
Humans are food, that’s all that they are, and the sooner you realize that,” he directed this at me too, “both of you, the better off you’ll be. That’s why I keep to myself. But I’m too old for anyone to consult or question. I do what I want.”

My god, was Duncan just admitting to us that he killed whoever he felt like killing for the sake of nourishment?
I killed one innocent quite unintentionally and almost got my head chopped off, how was he getting away with picking off random humans?

“I understand your point of view.” Gavin was trying to be diplomatic.
“Things are quite different now from when you were created I’m sure.”

“Aye, that they are creature talker.
Alright I’ll help you.” He got up off the couch and motioned for us to follow him outside.