I rinsed my plate and retreated upstairs with the cat in my arms. The top floor of our building was split into an attic and an open space that served as my bedroom, kind of like a loft apartment without the kitchen. On one side were my bed, dresser and desk. Beneath the large window on the other side was a faded green couch that was barely visible beneath the clothes and books strewn across it and beside the couch were two tall overflowing bookcases. My dad had been an English teacher and he had loved books, especially the classics. He used to say “No man can be called friendless who has God and the companionship of good books.” I looked it up a few years ago and found that it came from Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Sometimes I’m not too sure about God, but I agree with my dad and Browning about books. I’ve read all of his books and added my own to the collection. I think he’d be pleased to know I grew up to share his passion for reading.
The walls of my room were bare except for a few pictures of my dad and some of me, Roland and Peter. Roland called the room depressingly empty and lamented the fact that I refused to replace my dad’s old stereo with a newer one. But I liked my space. It was private and I had my own bathroom, even if it was the size of a closet. The best part was that the room had lots of windows with a wide view of the bay. What more could a girl want?
“Alright cat, let’s get you cleaned up before you go anywhere near my furniture.” I grabbed Daisy’s shampoo and a towel and proceeded to wash the filthy animal from head to toe. He was too lethargic from his meal and the healing to put up much of a fight and he purred like a little engine when I toweled him dry. I set him down on an old blanket on the couch and he stretched happily and curled into a ball, completely at home.
After I set up the litter box used by our last feline guest, I left the cat to his nap and jumped in the shower, hoping the hot water would wash away more than the grime from today’s events. But nothing could cleanse me of the memories of what had happened with Scott. I had always thought of myself as a good person, but only a monster would relish hurting a person the way I had. I shivered despite the hot water flowing over me.
My thoughts went to the little boggie family as I dried myself and I wondered how they were doing. Instead of grieving the loss of a child tonight, Fren and Mol were at home with their new baby. I had saved a life today – that had to count for something. Was that enough to redeem me for the awful thing I’d done after?
Dressed in a cami and my favorite pajama bottoms, I popped in a Fleetwood Mac cd and carried my sketchbook over to the bed. I inherited my dad’s cd collection after he died along with his love for seventies rock. It was one of the few things Nate and I had in common – our taste in music – and he even borrowed it on occasion. I shook off my regret as I flipped open the sketchbook to a clean page. If it wasn’t for this whole secret life thing I had going on, my uncle and I might have been a lot closer than we were.
I thought about the boggies, summoning an image of the tiny boggie infant I’d held in my arms. My pencil flew over the paper as I tried to capture his likeness. I drew him in my hands because that was my clearest picture of him, the moment he opened his mouth and bawled for the first time. When I was finished, I smiled at the drawing of the little creature, his squashed face scrunched up unhappily and his tiny mouth open in a silent cry. I was no da Vinci but my sketches weren’t half bad. It wasn’t like I shared them with anyone anyway.
A tapping at one of the windows drew my attention away from my sketch and I ran over to open the window to admit a large black crow. He cawed and flapped around the room a few times before landing on my outstretched hand.
“Harper, it’s about time you came home,” I scolded him, stroking the soft feathers at the back of his neck. He’d been gone for two days and I was worried he’d gotten into trouble. Technically, he didn’t live with us but he liked to hang out here, especially on the roof. He had kind of adopted me after I saved him from Scott but he still liked to go off and do his own thing.
“If you’re hungry, there’s food in your dish,” I told him when he shifted restlessly, a cue that he wanted a treat. I wasn’t surprised when he left my hand and flew out the window headed for the roof. More than once I’d suspected he understood me when I talked to him. I read that crows are very intelligent and Harper had gotten a good dose of my power when I’d healed him. Who knew what other affects it had on animals?
I left the window open for him and sat down at my laptop to check out the online activity. Today was the second time I’d used troll bile to purchase medicine for Remy and I was paranoid as hell that someone would trace it back to me and especially to Remy. It was the main reason I dealt only with Malloy. For all his crafty ways, Malloy was very discreet about his business. In his line of work he had to be if he didn’t want to end up gutted in an alley.
The message boards were busy. There was no mention of troll bile but another thread caught my eye – one about vampire activity in Portland. Vampires were the most common topic discussed on the boards and there were always tons of posts about vampire sightings though it was pretty easy to distinguish the real deal from the hype. I’d never seen a vampire but I knew plenty about them, learned mostly from Remy, and my education had taught me that Hollywood and fiction writers have absolutely no clue.
Vampires usually keep to large cities where their hunting can be camouflaged by the higher crime rate. They live in covens and like to hunt in small packs and, while they are mostly active at night, mature vamps can handle exposure to daylight as long as it is not direct sunlight and not for long periods. Younger vamps – those less than a hundred years old – are not strong enough to withstand even a minute of daylight. Most vamps – young and old – don’t risk the chance of meeting the sun so they stay hidden during the day.
And there are no solitary vamps wandering the earth with tortured souls waiting to be saved by true love. Vampires are pure evil and their only redeeming quality is that they can be killed with the right weapons. Unfortunately, if a human gets close enough to see a vampire in the flesh then chances are they will not survive to talk about it.
The posting about Portland caught my attention because Portland was a little over an hour from New Hastings, and I used to live there with my dad. There usually wasn’t that much talk about the Portland area because its population was not big enough to hide unusual activity. So when I read that four teenage girls aged seventeen and eighteen had disappeared in the last two weeks, a chill went through me. All the girls were reported as suspected runaways though they had taken nothing with them and none of their friends believed they would run away. None of the girls knew each other and the police had no leads. The poster said it looked like a vampire was at work in the area.
Bile rose in my throat. Vampires take great pleasure in torturing their victims before they drain them. And what they leave behind… A shudder passed through me as an image came unbidden to my mind. I closed my eyes but the scene had been seared into my brain.
I gritted my teeth and waited for the old fear and pain to pass. At times like this I wanted nothing more than to climb in bed hide under my covers. But I didn’t. If there were vampires in Portland, I had to know.
The rest of the thread did not offer any more information other than the girls had all disappeared at night. The user who had started the thread was a regular on the site, and we talked often. He really knew his stuff so I pinged him and asked for a private chat. Within minutes he popped up in a separate window.