But today was different. What was it with that diarrhea of the mouth he’d suddenly developed? Talking nostalgically about his childhood home and family like they’d been the friggin’ Waltons or something? Pfff! Next he would be blabbing about his tour in ’Nam, at which point he would have to slit his own throat.
Yeah, maybe it was time for a new hairstyle. Time to rid himself of that last visible reminder of that horrible episode in his life, when he’d committed his great sin. Hah! He could wear a ponytail down to his ass, and that wouldn’t change anything. The reminders were embedded forever in his brain.
He drove slowly down the long driveway that led through the hundred-acre property and nodded as Svein waved him through the electronic gate that had been erected last year. Security was extremely important, not just to keep out the tourists who flooded the whack-job town of Transylvania, but it was important that the location of the vangel command center be kept a secret from Jasper, king of all the Lucipires, their most hated enemy.
Lucipires were demon vampires, one of Satan’s many tools, whose sole purpose was to kill evil people, or those about to commit some great sin, before their time, before they had a chance to repent. Those taken were not sent to Hell but to Horror, where Jasper and his minions tortured them until they turned into Lucies themselves.
Lucipires were the reason why vangels had been created to begin with. And humans, who had been guilty of some grave sin during their human life, like himself, were more than grateful for this second chance at redemption. It was either that or go south to that other place. Really south. Where it was hotter than Hades. Wait a minute. It was Hades.
Karl shook his head at the idiocy of making jokes with himself. Next he would be talking to himself. And babbling like a moron. Here’s a news flash, Mortensen, you already did that.
He passed the “Welcome to Transylvania” billboard, then St. Vladamir’s Church, where the outdoor sign read, “God Loves All His Creations . . . Even You.” He had to give the town credit. It had been a depressed, dying burg here in the boondocks until about seven years ago, when some enterprising fellow came up with the idea of jumping on the vampire bandwagon. Back then, the book Twilight had been published with great acclaim, and that True Blood series was just taking off.
They changed the name of the town to Transylvania, and every business developed a vampire slant, one dorkier than the other. The naysayers had predicted the vampire craze would die out, but thus far, that hadn’t happened. Tourists swamped the town year-round, except for the coldest months, but even now the town council was planning some big Christmas bash that would draw vampire aficionados, despite the weather.
The good thing was that vangels, who’d taken over the long-abandoned, run-down castle up on the hill, built by a lumber baron a century or so ago, didn’t stand out in the crowds here. Not even when they were wearing long cloaks to hide their weapons. The townfolks thought the castle was being renovated into a hotel.
Snow was coming down harder now. Big, fat flakes. Karl turned the windshield wipers on and amped up the heat as he passed slowly through town. He was wearing only an unlined denim jacket, and the temperature was dropping by the minute.
Here and there, Karl waved to people he knew. Well, not really “knew.” Acquaintances. Vangels tried not to get too close to humans for fear of revealing their true selves.
Maury Bernstein, owner of Good Bites, who stood in the open doorway of his restaurant watching the snow come down, was probably wondering if it would affect his dinner crowd. There were at least twenty restaurants and bars serving food and drinks in the area. Everything from The Bloody Burger Joint to Drac’s Dungeon to The Dark Side. A signature drink at most of the bars was called a “Bloody Fang.”
Stella Cantrell was hanging a wreath on the door of Stinking Roses, a tiny shop that specialized in everything involving garlic. Stinking rose was another name for garlic, Karl had learned on moving here. Apparently garlic was supposed to repel vampires though the town’s purpose was to attract them, of course. Personally, he liked garlic, in moderation. Anyhow, Stella’s wreath had garlic bulbs adorning it as well as holly berries.
Other stores sold capes, fake fangs, crosses on heavy gold chains, even stakes, which could double for tomato-plant supports, and posters. Several T-shirt shops did a flourishing business with logos like “Fangbangers,” “Got Blood,” “Sookie Got Screwed,” “Bitten,” and so on. The adult video store had been forced to move last year to the outskirts of town by conservatives outraged at the vulgar titles in the window. They were probably right since tourists often brought kids with them, but the titles of some of them had been funny. Like Ejacula, Intercourse with a Vampire, Fang Me, Bang Me, or Vlad Had a Really Big Impaler.
Leaving the town proper, Karl headed west toward Penn State University though it was a good distance away. Two miles out of town, he passed the Bed & Blood Bed-and-Breakfast, run by an Amish couple, who were being shunned by their community. The husband made hand-carved specialty caskets that he sold on the Internet, probably the reason they were ostracized by their order. Alex was friends with them and bought lots of fresh produce there.
Karl had been feeling jumpy all day. The skin-crawling sensation he often got before a mission. Which was odd because there was no particular mission on the agenda as far as he knew. He’d quit smoking last month. That was probably what was affecting him so. Or maybe he needed a cup of coffee. Caffeine had the opposite effect on him as some folks. It tended to calm him down.
He pulled into the almost empty parking lot of Drac’s Diner off Route 322. There was something . . . rather, someone . . . he needed to check on here.
The bell on the door tinkled when he entered. The only other customers were a couple in a back booth and a truck driver sitting at the far end of the counter having an early dinner. Other than the name of the diner, this place didn’t do much to push the vampire theme, except during the high season, when the staff might don fake fangs. Their menu hadn’t changed in years.
“Hey, stranger,” the manager and co-owner, Jeanette Morgan, called out. “Coffee and a piece of apple pie?”
“Just coffee today, thanks.”
He sat down at the counter, near the register, and straddled the stool. “Where’s Faith today?”
Faith was a young waitress that worked here. A tiny bird of a woman who always looked frightened. She reminded him a little of his deceased wife Sally, except Faith was way thinner, and her blonde hair was always lank, and her blue eyes dull.
Jeanette rolled her eyes and leaned over the counter toward him. “She called in sick again today. I’m worried about her.”
That prickly sensation on his skin turned pricklier. “Why?”
“She’s being abused by that no-good bastard she lives with. Leroy Brown, named after that junkyard-dog song, no doubt. Can’t hold a job or his temper. Never has two pennies to rub together but plenty for that souped-up Harley of his and for the booze. Meanwhile, she drives a twenty-year-old, rusted-out Volkswagen with bald tires. The jerk lives off Faith’s piddly tips when he’s unemployed, which is most of the time. Fashions himself some kind of heavy metal musician in local dives. Pfff! Heavy metal jackass, if you ask me!”
The fine hairs on the back of Karl’s neck stood out with alarm. “What do you mean by abuse? Yelling, verbal insults, that kind of thing?”
“I wish! Not that making her feel like crap isn’t his M.O., but he hits her, too. Last year, he broke her wrist. One time, when he was really plastered, he carved his initials on her thigh.”
Karl saw red, literally, for a moment. “Why does she stay with him if . . . never mind. I know about the abused-wife syndrome. Every TV shrink in the world talks about it.”
“She’s not his wife, thank God. But same as, I guess. Problem is that business slows down for us here during the winter, and her tips have been smaller. I
suspect that Leroy the Loser thinks she’s holding out on him. He usually hides any marks he puts on her, but last week I noticed finger marks on her neck. He’s escalating. Poor Faith! She doesn’t deserve this.”
That was it! Karl stood abruptly, causing his coffee to splash over into the saucer. “Where does she live? I’ll go check on her.”
“Would you?” Jeanette asked hopefully. “I thought about calling the police, but a trooper who was in here yesterday told me they have to have cause for even knocking on a door, not just suspicions. And she has never filed a complaint, I don’t think. These days, the law protects the perps as much as the victims. The trooper’s words, not mine.”
“What’s the address?”
“I’m not sure. She lives in a small trailer park off the road between Reedsville and Belleville. Called Floral Heaven, or Floral Oaks, or some such thing.”
Somehow, Karl would find her. “What’s her last name?” he asked, finding it hard to believe he was off to rescue someone whose name he didn’t even know.
“Larson. Faith Larson.”
He reached for his wallet, about to pay for his coffee, when Jeanette waved his hand aside. “On the house, buddy. And, hey, would you please let me know what you find out, either way?”
“Sure,” he said.
It was a fifteen-minute drive along Route 322 under normal circumstances, but today the snow continued to fall heavily, and the going was slow. Especially when he made the turnoff onto the two-lane Route 655 at Reedsville and kept getting caught behind one Amish buggy after another. They were picturesque as anything here in Big Valley, but when you were in a hurry, nothing but a nuisance. He took a deep breath and deliberately tamped down his anxious nerves, taking in the sights. One antique shop after another. Peachey’s Meat Market, where Lizzie often bought whole carcasses of beef or pork or lamb, or fresh vegetables at the farmers’ market in the summer months. The Rustic Log Furniture Barn. Brookmere Winery. A woodcarver and several fabric and quilt shops. Alex purchased many Amish quilts for the beds back at the castle. They were pretty and very expensive.
Finally, unable thus far to find any trailer park at all, he had to give up and ask for directions. He stopped and went into Dayze Gone Bye Carriage Rides, which offered tours of the Amish farms in better weather. There were no customers today, of course.
“Goot day!” said the Amish fellow, who wore the traditional plain clothes of his order, black pants and jacket, blue shirt, long beard, and hair that looked liked it had been cut with a bowl over the head. “Kin I help ya?”
Karl went up to the counter, and asked the young man, “Can you tell me where to find Floral Oaks Trailer Park, or maybe it’s Floral Heaven?”
“Can’t say I ever heard of . . . oh, ya mean Rose Haven. Ya gotta turn back t’ward the highway ’bout a mile or so. Turn right at Yoder’s Orchard, then drive ’bout a quarter mile up the road.”
“Thanks,” he said, giving a little salute. Another thing he needed to stop doing.
He soon found the place, and what a pitiful excuse for a trailer park it was, too. About a dozen rusty old trailers with propane tanks outside for heat sat around in a cluster. Even covered with snow, their sorry condition couldn’t be hidden. An old VW bug was parked in front of one of them, and, luckily, no motorcycle was in sight.
He knocked on the door, and, although he heard some music playing lightly in the background . . . a country music song by the sounds of it . . . no one answered the door. He knocked some more, “Open up, Faith. It’s me, Karl Mortensen. Jeanette asked me to come check on you.”
Finally, the door opened a crack.
And he was not prepared for what he saw. He, who’d seen more horrific sights in his short life than any man should, both in ’Nam and as a vangel fighting demon vampires, was shocked.
Faith’s left eye was swollen shut. There was a black-and-blue handprint across her cheek. And her bottom lip looked as if it had been Botoxed all to hell, without the benefit of the pricey shots; a crack in the middle still oozed blood. Who knew how bad the rest of her was, the part hidden by the door?
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” he muttered, and shoved the door wider.
“Hey, you can’t just come in here and—”
“Try and stop me, sweetheart.” Then, “Oh, honey, you need go to the emergency room or to a doctor.”
She was wearing a short-sleeved PSU sweatshirt and loose jeans. Her feet were bare. She was a skinny little thing, which made the bruises on her arms more startling, and she kept one hand over her stomach, where Leroy had probably kicked her. He tried not to imagine initials carved on her thigh.
“NO!” she shouted with alarm. Then, more softly. “I can’t go to a doctor or an emergency room. They’re too expensive, and they’ll want me to file a complaint.” She stared at him for a moment. “You’re the guy from the diner who always orders coffee and apple pie.”
As if that mattered! “Why wouldn’t you want the bastard arrested?”
“Because he would come after me when he got out, and it would be worse.”
“Where is the junkyard dog now? Off beating on another helpless woman?”
“He went to the store. For beer.”
That was all the asshole needed. More alcohol to fuel his rage, which translated to more beating up on the closest victim he could find. In other words, Faith.
“Let’s get out of here then. Go pack a bag.”
She shook her head. “I can’t. He’ll find me. He always does.”
“Surely, there’s a women’s shelter that—”
“No! I’ve tried that before. He always, always finds me.”
“Listen, this ends today. Unless you love the bastard and want to stay with him until he finally kills you.”
“I don’t love him,” she spat out. “I haven’t for a long time, but I have no choice. People like you, all high-and-mighty, think it’s so easy to just walk out, but it isn’t. It isn’t!” she sobbed.
“It is now. I’ve got your back, and no one, NO ONE, is going to hurt you again.”
She peered hopefully up at him through her one open, tear-misted eye. Tears also seeped from the closed eye, which probably burned like a bitch. “Where can I go?”
“With me?”
“Where?”
Oh, Lord! Was he really going to do this? “Back to my place. You’ll be safe there.” I won’t be, once Mike finds out, though. Ah, hell! What else can I do?
She went into the tiny bedroom to pack, and he paced around the small space that was a kitchen, dining room, and living room combined. It was shabby as all get out but spotlessly clean. The most pathetic little Charlie-Brown-style tree sat on a windowsill. There was a small TV in the corner, but an electric guitar beside it that probably cost at least a thousand dollars. A man’s high-end leather jacket hung from a wall peg, next to a threadbare, puffy pink jacket that probably came from Goodwill. The temperature inside was decidedly cool. They were probably out of fuel.
“Hurry up in there, Faith. The snow’s coming down pretty hard, and we have a long drive back to the cas—back home.” He went over to the kitchen counter and turned off the old Bakelite radio, on which Miranda Lambert was belting off something about not being able to go home. Wanna bet? he thought.
“I’m ready,” she said, standing in the doorway with a battered, old-fashioned, hard-surface Samsonite overnight suitcase. She’d put on a pair of white sneakers, which would get wet just walking outside, but he wasn’t about to ask her to change. He took the luggage out of her hand while she donned the pink jacket and topped it off with a fuzzy pink hat with a matching scarf, both having seen better days. She looked like a Pepto Pez.
Just then, they heard the sound of a motorcycle riding up the road, stopping outside, revving its motor in a display of pure masculine idiocy, then a male voice exclaiming, “
What the hell?”
“Leroy, I presume?”
She nodded and made a small mewling sound like a whipped kitten. Her body began to tremble.
“Don’t, Faith. He can’t hurt you anymore.”
“Yes, he can. He’ll hurt you, too.”
Karl made a snorting sound of disagreement. “I’d like to see him try.”
“Oh, you should have never come. This is bad. Really bad.”
The door flew open and banged against an interior wall, causing a framed print of the Last Supper to fall to the floor, its glass shattering.
A sign if he ever saw one.
“I knew it. You bitch! You’ve been fucking around on me all this time.” Leroy was six feet of bodybuilder muscle, close to two hundred pounds, wearing a studded motorcycle jacket over a “Bang a Biker” T-shirt. Black jeans were tucked into heavy motorcycle boots.
“No, Leroy. It’s not what you think. This is just a . . . a friend from the diner.”
“Bullshit! You’ve been screwing a fuckin’ jarhead, all the time tryin’ to pretend you’re Little Miss Innocent. You’re a slut, that’s what you are.”
“You got it all wrong, man,” Karl started to say.
“You! You!” Leroy sputtered, pointing a forefinger at Karl, spit flying. “Nobody fucks with my woman and walks away. You are dead meat!”
“Your woman? I didn’t realize that you were married,” Karl said, edging away from Faith to get a better position for when Leroy struck, which he surely would.
“Same as!” Leroy contended. “Tell him, Faith. Tell him you’re mine.”
Faith just whimpered, unable to speak.
Which infuriated Leroy even more. He fisted his hands.
It was obvious to Karl that Leroy was debating in that thick, testosterone-fueled brain of his whom to hit first, him or Faith.
Karl had other plans.
Leroy took up way too much space in this small trailer. Karl hated the image of a brute of this size and strength beating on a woman like Faith, who couldn’t be more than five-foot-three and a hundred and ten pounds soaking wet. He could handle Leroy even though the ape had a good twenty pounds on him. Wake up, Loser. You don’t want to tick off a vangel.