CHAPTER SIX
Another week passed by with nothing too interesting happening. It took me a couple of days to muster the courage to approach him, but I started spending my lunches with Jack. I'm not sure why I was afraid, but there was something about him that intimidated me. Maybe it was the fact that he was so old and had seen so much. Maybe I was afraid that he wanted to keep to isolation and that he would only put up with me out of respect for my parents. But, as I weighed the pros and cons, I realized that having someone that wasn't related to me to talk to was more important that what he thought of me. The first day I approached him we wandered off to a fairly secluded part of the quad and I told him about my parents. He was quiet during my story, and afterwards he asked me, "Are you okay with all this? Really, truly okay? I've seen many people learn the truth that go insane over time. They start seeing beings that are a threat to their well being everywhere they look, and can't handle the stress of constantly living in fear."
I thought about it a moment, then nodded definitively. "I could be afraid, but there's good, too. My parents made sure to teach us - me and my siblings, I mean - about balance, so I know that there can't truly be more evil than good. Maybe the evil makes itself more obvious, but I've seen some things to counterbalance that, too." I told him about what happened before I saw him kill the female vampire, and he looked at me with surprise.
"What you saw was very rare. They're a special group of soul collectors - the ones you saw are the only ones in the world of their kind. They are called the Eldraif, and they visit every place where a person is buried and makes sure that the soul is at peace, wherever it is. What you saw was them checking that the souls of the people buried at that cemetery were at peace, and singing to those who were not at peace a special chant to calm them down. They finish it up with a chant to help maintain an overall peace at that graveyard. This is good - it will be very difficult for Mina to make any vampires out of the bodies that are buried there for a while."
"Are there more than one kind of soul collectors?"
"Yes. Different cultures call them different things - Americans call them 'grim reapers', and they more often than not imagine the soul collectors that bring those who have been judged impure to hell. The Japanese call them 'shinigami', and while the term has become broader in definition, they tend to think of the soul collectors that have a hand in the actual death of a person."
"How many types of soul collectors are there?!"
"Who knows? Death is a confusing, bureaucratic process, really. You'd be better off trying to avoid it as long as possible." He winked at this, and I giggled. Despite the emotionless, tough image he tried to make of himself to others, he was actually pretty funny.
I sought him out the next couple of lunches and asked him about some of the things he had done in his life. Where and when he was born, places he'd been. He couldn't remember anything from his childhood - when vampires are created, they spend several years living in madness, only half aware of their surroundings and what they are doing. Half vampires suffer from the same curse, so by the time he was able to clearly remember what he was doing, anywhere between twenty and thirty years had passed. One of his first memories was spending a summer with Bram Stoker, which I found ironic on a couple of levels. First was that he knew someone that could provide an accurate description of how vampires really were, and he missed the mark by a long shot. Second is that I realized when Jack had mentioned that he would have stopped Stoker from publishing that book, it was more out of hindsight rather than wishful thinking.
That Friday he surprised me by walking me home again. I realized that I was actually really happy that he wanted to spend time with me, and that he wasn't just putting up with me. We walked very slowly, and talked about normal stuff. Movies, books, and amusement parks we'd been to and our favorite rides in each park. I talked about how one day I wanted to travel to Australia and spend a summer with the aborigines. I had no particular reason for wanting to do this, I had to explain, no particular fascination with their culture or the continent itself. It just sounded like an adventure, and I wanted to experience something exciting and maybe a little dangerous.
"You don't feel like spending time with a half vampire is exciting and a little dangerous?" He asked, raising and eyebrow and giving me a goofy grin.
"Ha. You have a point. I suppose my idea of an adventure probably seems a little lame relative to all the exciting stuff that's happening in my own backyard. But this adventure of mine is something I would choose to be a part of. Besides, I'm not actually running around with you slaying vampires. All I know firsthand is what I've witnessed from my bedroom window."
"You could go down there, you know."
"What do you mean?"
"If you wanted to, you could spend a night in the graveyard and spend some time with the ghosts. They're really nice, for the most part, and since the Eldraif cleansed the place recently it should be safe. I'd be with you, of course, since you never know what could wander through, but if you wanted to be a part of it, all you have to do is hop the fence."
I didn't answer. He had a point, and I had never thought of it before, but suddenly the idea of actually being down there seemed intimidating. Though I wasn't far away, I realized I felt safe in the ward-protected house.
"You don't have to, of course, it's just a suggestion," Jack hastily said, trying to make me feel comfortable again.
We didn't talk much the rest of the way, not that it was very far. It was still a little awkward, though, but I thought it was going to be better once we reached the porch. Nope, it was worse. Once he placed my bike in its spot next to the door he turned to face me and didn't say anything for a few seconds. I wasn't sure what to say, either. Finally he broke the ice and said, "Thank you for allowing me to walk you home. I haven't had a decent conversation like that with anyone for a long time."
"Yeah, umm... thanks for walking me home. Um." I compulsively gave him a quick half hug. "Um. See you Monday?"
He had a look on his face I couldn't decipher. It was a mixture of surprise and... embarrassment? I could feel my face turn red as I realized that I really, really shouldn't have hugged him. He finally nodded, though, and said, "Yeah. Monday."
I walked in the house as he turned away and immediately ran up to my room. I threw myself on my bed and screamed into my pillow. What had I been thinking? I didn't think hugs were that big of a deal. I gave and received hugs all the time at my last high school without thinking about it. Did he read more into it than I had? Was there something about half-vampire culture that they just didn’t give hugs? Did I seriously offend him in some way? God, I shouldn't have been so impulsive. Why was I worrying so much about it? I hugged him because that's how I showed appreciation to people I felt I was friends with. I hugged people all the time. He wasn't required to know that about me, but he shouldn't have reacted the way he did. Maybe he didn't see us as friends? Oh no. Maybe he really was just putting up with me. Then why would he ask to walk me home?
I went to my desk and spent the next two hours drawing on sheets of origami paper. The drawings had jagged shapes, quickly drawn. I folded them into sloppy, non-specific shapes like boxes or stars. I hung them up, but tore them down again almost immediately. They didn't look right next to all the other shapes. I strung them on a completely new line and pinned it up on the other side of the room. After all that I felt a little better. Not too much better, but enough that I didn't feel like dwelling on the issue any more. I left my room and didn't return for several hours.
As I was getting ready for bed, though, I kept staring at the line of origami. Not the new one, the old one. I realized that the reason why the figures I folded earlier looked so weird on that line was because it was already complete. I only did one other piece since the dragon – the flower box I folded the day I had stayed home from school to talk with my parents. They answered so many questions that all the other things I had be
en worrying about were things I didn't worry about any more. The shapes I made where I was worrying about moving from San Francisco and leaving my friends, that night I had first seen Jack slaying the vampires... I had answers to all of them now. I was ready to burn this line and start a new one.
I never planned burning these strings of paper out ahead of time. It was impulsive - though, knowing why I was the way I was, what with personifying fire and all, it made sense to me now. I dressed in purple and red - colors that blended in the dark well. I had a special lighter that I used for this ritual and dug it out from the back of my desk drawer. There wasn't actually anything all that special about it, really, but it was the one I used to burn my first string of origami and I was attached to it.
I waited until five minutes to midnight to sneak out of the house. Though through recent observations I now knew that the most magical stuff happened well past midnight, I still clung to the belief that midnight was the 'witching hour'. I had done this ritual several times before, but I was excited for tonight. I decided I was going to perform this ritual in the graveyard, and while I was terrified of what could happen, I was also excited that I was going to contribute in some small way to all the excitement that happened there on a nightly basis. I could feel my heart beating in my throat as I climbed over our backyard fence to enter the graveyard, in fear, anticipation and excitement. I realized I had never actually been in the graveyard before, and I felt I was wandering into someplace forbidden.
I knew exactly where I wanted to go. There was a spot near the back of the graveyard that had a circular area paved with cobblestones and a sundial that, when I arrived, was dedicated to someone that died over forty years ago. I placed my origami near the base of the sundial and flicked my lighter on. I started with the oldest piece, and gently touched each paper figurine with the flame in the order which I made them. I stood back and put my hands in my pockets, satisfied with the way each piece curled up and crumpled into ash.
Suddenly that dangerous silence I knew all too well fell on the graveyard, and I felt a cold breeze brush past. You know when you touch something that's cold enough that you aren't sure if it's wet or not, but not so cold that it burns? It was that kind of uncomfortable coldness. It was still warm enough at that point of the year that the breezes should have only started to get cool, so I knew something was wrong. I looked around quickly, hoping to see whatever was causing this change in temperature. I didn't see anything, but still took off at a brisk walk back towards home. I would get up early tomorrow morning to clean up the ashes; right now something was telling me to get out of there, and fast.
I didn't see it coming at all. Suddenly I was being strangled from behind and struggling to escape its grasp. I was doing my best to kick and elbow what was behind me, but its arms were long enough that I couldn't do more than scrape its shins. I tried to scream out, but its cold, clammy fingers were pressing into my throat hard enough that all I could do was let out a hoarse whisper of a scream. I could feel myself losing consciousness, and my vision was getting dark. A dim thought surfaced and I reached for my lighter. As soon as I had my hand on it I remembered - if this were a vampire, trying to set it on fire would scare it off real quick. I held up the lighter to the things arm and flicked it on. The result was instant, but just as horrifying as being strangled. I was thrown away from my assailant and it let out an unearthly scream. The sound was unmistakably full of pain, fear, and anger, but it sounded as though five people were screaming at once. I covered my ears, hoping it would stop. It didn't, but I dared to look at it anyway. It was a vampire, sure, but it was the most zombie-like vampire I had seen yet. It barely had clothes hanging on it, and there was not much more skin, either. Places where there weren't much muscle had bones exposed; on the skull, forearms and shins. The muscle that was exposed was dull and rotting. I couldn’t even tell if it had been a man or a woman in life.
The vampire was stumbling in a circle, trying to wave its arm around to get the fire out, screaming the whole time. I got up and started to back away, not sure if it would be a good idea to leave it there, or if it would be an even worse idea to be caught here with it.
I didn't have to worry about that for too long, though. I heard something running up behind me and turned around quickly, afraid I was going to be attacked again. To my great relief, it was Jack. He looked at me, to the vampire behind me, then back at me, panicked, yelling, "No! Keep thinking about the fire!" I turned back around to the vampire, and to my horror the fire was almost out. There was a single, small flame, and the vampire stopped concentrating on the fact that it was on fire and started lurching towards me again. By this time Jack had caught up to where I was and kept running towards the monster, executing a perfect jump kick and knocking the vampire to the ground. He turned back to face me, struggling to keep the vampire pinned down. "Kenna! Keep thinking about it being on fire! Do it now!!"
I did so, though I wasn't sure what it was going to do. To my surprise, the flame suddenly flared and started spreading up the vampire's arm and to its torso. Jack jumped up, and then stomped on the monsters throat to silence its screaming. It took less than a minute for the vampire to be consumed in the flames, and only another minute for it to turn to ash. Jack waited, not moving, until the final flame was out. Once it was he turned immediately towards me and half-jogged to where I was standing. "Are you alright?"
I was shaking pretty badly, but I nodded quickly and tried to discreetly wipe away a couple of unshed tears that had formed in my eyes. "What... What was that? A vampire, right?"
Jack's face darkened. "It was, though it was one of the worst kinds there are. They're what we classify as an abomination. When a powerful vampire tries to turn someone that was very good in life - and I'm talking about someone who dedicated their life to serving others and trying to better the world - it takes a long, long time for the corpse to turn into something that can rise from the grave. The hatred the powerful vampire had has time to fester, though, and when the vampire rises it rises as an abomination, even to other vampires. It's a shell of a being, open to any force that can take advantage of it. It's easy for ghosts to possess this being, and as many as seven or eight ghosts can inhabit a single being in this state.”
“I thought you said this graveyard was clean.”
“It is. This abomination came from somewhere else. Probably a couple of towns away.”
“Why would it come here?”
“I do not know. It’s why I was late to take it down. I knew there was something evil that had entered the town, but something was protecting its exact location. It was… fortunate that I was close by when it attacked you. I’m sorry you had to experience that. Why were you here, anyway? I told you I needed to be here with you if you were going to spend time here at night.”
“It’s… this thing I do. I wasn’t planning on it.” I had never told anyone besides my parents about my ritual, and was kind of embarrassed to explain it to someone I hadn’t known for that long, regardless of how understanding he may be. “I would actually like to clean up, if that’s okay.”
“Of course.” He followed behind me as I walked back to the pile of ash where I had set my paper figures on fire. All that was left was a bit of the string, which was not unusual. I picked it up and put it in my pocket, then swept as much ash as I could into my hand, and stood and waited. It took a couple of minutes, but eventually I felt a breeze. As soon as I felt it, I threw the ash in the air and let the wind take it away. It wasn’t a strong breeze, and it didn’t take the ash very far, but the ritual was done and I was satisfied.
I clapped my hands together to get the extra ash off, and turned to face Jack, smiling. “Done! Would you care to walk me home?”
“Absolutely.” He held his arm out in a very old-time, gentlemanly fashion, and after a moment’s hesitation I rested my hand on his arm. We walked slowly towards my house in silence. When we reached the fen
ce, we stopped and parted, revisiting the awkward moment we had had only hours ago.
He cleared his throat. “I assume you want to sneak in the back door, and not go around to the front?” I shrugged, then nodded. “Would you like a leg up?”
“Sure.” He started to kneel, but I stopped him. “I’m sorry. For earlier.”
“What do you mean?”
“I gave you a quick hug, and I got the impression it made you uncomfortable. I’m sorry. I’m just used to hugging people when I say goodbye. “
He gave me a strained, embarrassed smile. “I’m sorry. I… had not received any sort of human interaction like that for a long time. It was unexpected, but not unpleasant. I did not want to give the impression I was upset. You took me by surprise, was all.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you had been by yourself for that long.”
“It’s the way it has to be.”
“But why? I don’t understand.”
“I will explain one day, perhaps. But you have been through much tonight, and I do not wish for you to have more to worry about. I will leave it at this: thank you for the hug; it took me by surprise, but it means a lot to me that you feel comfortable enough with me to give me such a parting.”
I giggled, amused by his mannerisms. “It’s okay. I’m sorry I caught you by surprise.”
Another awkward pause. Then, carefully, he asked, “May I give you a hug?”
I grinned, finally feeling relaxed around him again. “Of course. You didn’t need to ask.”
It was a quick hug, very polite and friendly. We parted, smiled at each other, and he gave me a boost over my fence without another word.
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