the land, I planted my paddle to swing the kayak sideways so he could see the faces of his prey. Justin reached into his bag and held up the talisman. It glowed like a beacon. The monster hesitated. Then the change began. The beast was struggling towards the boat, but the grace and power of his strokes was dying. The darkness of his head was fading to the pale face of Anton Sorvine. The change was hard to see in the pale light, even against the black water, but both Justin and I were mesmerized. Suddenly, it was not a monstrous beast in the ocean, but a naked man bobbing in the swirling waters. And he was panicked. He spun and tried to see land, but none was visible except the levees, so far away. “Help…me” he cried out towards us. He struggled to swim towards us, but the exhaustion was taking him. He realized what we had done. Unless we helped him, he was hopelessly doomed. Even in his best shape, he could not hope to make it back to shore in his current form. In his condition, he would have been hard pressed to swim to our boat bobbing just a few yards away. “You insignificant bastards” he cried out.
I watched as Sorvine struggled. I knew what we were doing was right and just, but it still felt like murder to watch a man drown. Justin was watching Sorvine as well. “I didn’t think it would be this hard to watch him die” Justin said softly, as Sorvine’s head disappeared below the waves. I shook my head and answered, “Think about what he did to your sister…”. Then the dark, swirling water erased any evidence of the death. The threat from Anton Sorvine was gone.
That should have been the end of the story. The long drive back to Tuscaloosa was mostly quiet. We all felt Katie’s absence. We had filed a Missing Person’s Report, as Gweneth had instructed. It was not hard to look upset. We were. A bored looking New Orleans police officer had taken the information, asked a few questions, and in the end added her to the list of the missing. But it was obvious they wouldn’t devote much of their resources to searching. People, especially pretty young women, went missing often enough in the Big Easy that the police didn’t show much hope.
It had been dark for an hour when I pulled up in the driveway. It felt good to be home. I hadn’t realized how much I missed it until I got back. I saw Kristy’s little Kia parked in the carport. I didn’t know how to tell her what had happened. She wouldn’t believe it. There wasn’t much light coming thru the windows, but I could see she was home. She always made sure the lights were off when we left home. The only thing that was odd was that I didn’t hear Louie, our daschund, barking. As I walked in I called out, “Hey Sweets, I’m home”. It was silent. Suddenly a shape crashed into me and hurled me across the kitchen. I bounced off the refrigerator and landed sprawled on the floor, scrambling away from what I was sure was a werewolf. I looked up as my wife Kristy advanced towards me, and eerie red glow in her eyes. “baby, what the hell….” I broke off as I saw her open her mouth. Inch long fangs protruded from her upper jaw. She drooled slightly and her hands were crooked in claws. “My Master will reward me for your death, my love” she whispered. But I felt no love from her. As she stepped towards me the backdoor swung open. Before Kristy could turn, Gweneth was in the kitchen swinging a heavy canvas bag. The bag caught Kristy in the head, knocking her backwards. Gweneth moved faster than I would have thought possible, grabbing Kristy from behind, one arm around her body and one hand under her chin to hold her head still. My wife struggled and snarled in an unholy sound. But her arms were pinned and her head was held.
“In the bag is a mallet and a stake” Gweneth said calmly. Despite the violence of Kristy’s struggles Gweneth had her under control. I grabbed the bag and retrieved the items. I stood before my wife. “You must do this” Gweneth said. “It needs to be your hand, so you will understand”.
“You want me to kill my wife?” I asked incredulously.
“She is already dead” Gweneth replied. “I want you to release her from the thrall of her new Master”.
“I can’t” I mumbled.
“She was left here to kill you” Gweneth snarled. “If you do not end her she will keep trying. She has no will of her own” she explained as she held the struggling thing that had been my wife for 10 years. Kristy was livid. Her face was ghostly pale and carved in a rictus of rage. Her fangs gnashed and spittle splattered her cheeks. “My Master demands you die and that I take your head to him as a gift” she snarled, her words made strange by the fangs.
I stood in front of her and placed the point of the stake against her breast. Defiance and hatred boiled off of her. “You are NOT my wife” I screamed at her. In a softer voice I whispered “I’m sorry my sweets”. Then I swung the mallet once, driving the stake deep into her heart. Her eyes bulged. Blood spewed from her mouth as she died again. She began to swell and blacken as Gweneth dropped her to the floor.
I stared at the blackened, swollen body lying on the floor.
“Staking a vampire removes the unnatural life and lets the body return to where it should have been” she explained. “Your wife has been dead for several days”.
“Who did this and why?” I asked, whirling on her.
“The Council learned of my interference and allowed one of my kind to fetch a bounty” she explained. “I came as soon as I learned of it” she said, looking down at the floor.
“So this is your fault?” I growled at her.
“It is” she admitted. “But without my interference your daughter would be a monster” she said.
“Oh, as opposed to what she is now” I screamed at her. I could see that my words stung. Suddenly I saw that my anger was misplaced. It was not her fault that some monster took my wife and sent her to murder me. Gweneth had tried to save my daughter from a horrible fate.
I felt deflated. I staggered back against the counter and sagged down, my legs weak, until I was sitting on the cold tile floor. Gweneth walked over to me and knelt down before me.
“Chris, you can remain here and I will go if that is what you want. But I must take her body with me or burn it. The world cannot know of our existence” she explained. “And those who did this will try again” she said.
I looked up at her. “Or?” I asked.
“Or we can make this all look like a terrible accident” she said. “But it will mean you must be officially dead”. She stood looking down at me. “Those who sent her will continue to hunt you. The bounty will not be rescinded” she explained.
“I don’t know how” I said.
“I will teach you” she said.
In the end, Gweneth pulled Kristy’s fangs from her mouth and carried her body into the bedroom. She went outside and returned carrying a man’s body. “Don’t ask” she said to me as she walked past me with the man over her shoulder as if he weighed nothing. When she returned she asked “Do you have a space heater or kerosene heater?”.
I got out the kerosene heater from the storage room. It was not cold enough for it. But summer had not arrived yet, and the chill of a spring night was in the air. “Go outside, please” Gweneth requested. I stood in my driveway staring at the house I had shared with the, now dead, woman lying in our bed. I felt numb. Was there no end to the losses?
Gweneth appeared in the doorway. “It is done” she said. I could see flickers of light thru the window. By the time we walked to the road and got into her Mercedes flames were visible in the windows. We watched for just a moment as the fire consumed my home. Then Gweneth pulled away from the shoulder and smoothly drove down the road. Our house was isolated in a rural section of Tuscaloosa county. The fire would not be reported like it would in a suburb.
Finally I turned to Gweneth, “Now what?” I asked. “Now we create a new identification for you” she said. “I have done it many times” she said. “Modern technologies make it more difficult and yet easier” she said, “we still have ways of exploiting the loopholes”.
So that is how I became Denny Myers. The fewer people who know I am alive the better it is.
I feel horribly guilty for the pain I have put on my ex-wife. She lost her daughter and her ex-husband while she was honeymooning. We weren’t married any longer, but we were still friends. I felt a burning pain in my gut whenever I thought of Kristy. She didn’t deserve what happened to her. I think it was then that I decided to make them pay.
I found myself in Memphis at daybreak. Gweneth was in the trunk of the car, away from the sunlight. We had talked and she had given me a list of things to do. It all seemed surreal. I bought a disposable cell and put plenty of minutes on it. I found a barber shop and had them shave my head smooth. I left a nice tip. After all, it was Gweneth’s money. She had given me an envelope full of twenty dollar bills. I went to three different mailbox stores and picked up packages for her. I went shopping and bought some clothes for myself. I tried to avoid what I would usually wear. I found a decent hotel in an almost seedy area. Not seedy enough to be dangerous but not nice enough to require a credit card at check-in. I got a double room. Then I drove the Mercedes to a large private hospital and drove around the parking deck until I found just what I wanted. I backed the big car into a parking place directly in front of a rotating security camera. I watched the