***
“Stop it!” Barbara yelled, breaking free of her captive down at the back of the hall.
Tiffany hissed and tried her best to corral her, but somehow she managed to break free and get down to the living room. She allowed herself one momentary glance at her husband as she jumped against Vincent. She knew that she did not have the power to free her husband with muscle, and that no weapon that she had could harm him.
All that she could do was use coercion and rely on the power of the Holy Spirit.
“Please, Vincent,” she pleaded, clutching his leather coat with her right hand and his vise arm with her left. She did not dig her nails into him or attempt to pull his arm away from Michael’s throat. She just held onto the vampire and looked into his eyes, praying somewhere within for the Lord to bring some manner of help. “Don’t do this!”
Tiffany quickly slipped her right arm around Barbara and held her across the breast. She pulled her away some but was unable to free her from Vincent without doing harm to either her or the master, so she simply held on, awaiting instructions.
Vincent continued to squeeze Michael’s life away, but paused ever so slightly as he turned and gazed into Barbara’s eyes.
“This isn’t necessary. You have the power. There is nothing to stop you. Even Nathaniel has been powerless to stop you. Please, give me my husband’s life. Be merciful.”
Vincent loosened his grip, but only a little. A wicked smile crept across his countenance.
“Well done, you,” he said, and at once released her husband completely.
Michael fell like a sack of potatoes onto the end table, knocking it over loudly and sending picture frames and knick-knacks across the hallway like shrapnel. The second Pier 1 table lamp briefly shot sparks as Michael’s one hundred and ninety pounds crushed it against the wall. Barbara heard the violence and caught a whiff of the electrical discharge, but fought the urge to look at what was left of her husband. At least he was released! was all that she could think of now.
“Now I see,” the vampire continued, ignoring Tiffany at Barbara’s back as well as Michael crumpled on the floor at his feet.
“What?” she answered carefully.
“Now I see what it was that so fascinated the boy.”
“What boy?” She had lowered her hands now, but had as of yet to try and back away from the vampire. She tried to take things very deliberately. The vampire’s hands were lowered as well. Yet something warned her that it would not be very long before he had his hands upon her next.
“Do not toy with me, my dear.” Vincent set his hands upon his hips and flashed a toothy grin. “You know precisely who I mean. I have spent much time this week watching, studying the two of you together. It was so sweet and so very moving. You make a very beautiful couple together, if one could just get past the dead cold flesh and the odd hours that he would keep.” At last, he raised his right hand and caressed her left cheek with the back of it. His fingers trailed from cheekbone to chin and then over to the other side. “Tell me,” he asked. “Did he ever touch you? I mean, inappropriately.”
“No.”
“Now, now.” Vincent seemed to stifle a grin. “You answered much too quickly. I am certain that he collected you from the floor that night and carried you oh so tenderly to your bed. Just how gentlemanly was he while you were passed out? He took no liberties?”
“No.” Barbara held her tongue. She knew exactly what it was that he was attempting to do.
His touch was cold like a cold can of soda placed against the small of one’s back on a warm day; a piece of ice dropped into one’s blouse in the fall. She dared not move for fear of angering him. While his hand continued to crawl over her, she held her place, waiting for guidance. Even when those fingers went from her face down the length of her neck, dallying there for a time and then continuing on their way, slowly, seductively, down the front of her blouse. With a quick twist of his thumbnail, the first button flew across the room, followed by a second. She winced as those nails traipsed between her breasts.
“No? Are you quite certain of this?”
He waited while she did nothing but increasingly lost the fight within her to control her revulsion. She gritted her teeth. Vincent ran a solitary finger along each breast, sliding within one cup then the other. Barbara fully expected the worst, but it did not come.
“Very lovely, my dear,” he said, finally removing his hands from her. He collected the fabric at the base of her neck, making her respectable once again. “Very lovely, indeed. If he did not, in fact, touch you, I would surmise that he very much wanted to. Perhaps those feelings did not manifest themselves until much later. I do not know. Perhaps I, too, would care to spend a great deal of time with your body. Perhaps not. Perhaps I would simply spend much time on your neck until I was unable to stop myself any longer from drinking your life.”
Vincent sighed loudly with the thought and then turned away, looking upon the ruins of Barbara’s husband.
“Attend to your husband. He lives, but not for much longer if he does not inform me of the death of your one time paramour.”
Quickly, Barbara went down to her knees and began checking on Michael. He was breathing, but seemed unconscious.
“Vincent,” Tiffany finally spoke. “We must leave this place.”
“Yes,” he answered her, turning his full attention toward her. “That seems to be the forgone conclusion. Before we do, however, I must know what happened to Nathaniel.”
“He’s dead,” she added, matter-of-factly.
“Is he?”
“Of course.”
“And how do you know this?” He was growing impatient now. Barbara noted this but did not act as if she was even listening to the conversation.
“I saw him die!” Tiffany raised her voice.
“So you say,” Vincent said. “As I recall, when you returned, you told me that everyone was dead.” He motioned past Barbara to the crumpled heap before her. “Yet here one lies before me. Quite alive, I would say.”
“Do you need me to go out there and drag what’s left back here for your approval?” Tiffany said, growing more aggravated.
“Yes, I do!” Vincent snapped, causing both Barbara and Tiffany to flinch. “I want you to sneak out there amongst all of the fire fighters and police and the onlookers and retrieve my son from the smoldering embers without being seen. I want you to do this! Even I could not do this!” Tiffany took several steps back from the verbal assault. “Go and do it now! If you are captured, gouge a chunk out of your neck! Should you be seen and are followed back here, I will do worse!”
Surprisingly, there came a rapid, impatient knocking on the front door.
“Get the door,” Vincent said, reaching out and nudging Barbara with his booted foot. “Whoever it is, get rid of them!”
Barbara looked up at the vampire as she stood, hardly taking her eyes off of him. Without a word she marched to the door. In her mind, she was scrambling for the words to say to whoever it might be. She did not expect to find the chief of police to be standing there in the middle of the morning.
“Chief,” she said.
Quickly, she began to act as if she had just woken up from a deep sleep. How she would be able to explain how she had been sleeping in her clothes, she did not contemplate.
“Mrs. Lopez,” the chief began. “How is everybody?”
“Fine.”
“Really?” he answered. “My wife would have been out of her mind with worry with a fire next door, and you’re fine! The house is almost gone, by the way. Have you seen what’s left?”
“No,” she answered. “Michael was there for a while, but I didn’t go out. Too busy watching the children.”
“Right, right. Speaking of Michael, where is he? I’ve been trying to get hold of him for a while. He hasn’t been answering.” He paused momentarily. “You haven’t been answering either. Your phone is off the hook.”
Barbara just stood there. Vincent had yanked the
phone from the wall after the second call while he had awaited word from Tiffany as to the events next door. She had not cared about the phone at the time. She’d silently followed the vampire’s every move and heard his every utterance. Inside, however, she had been busy praying for her husband and friend in the house next door once she’d realized that Tiffany’s tale about a noise had been a ruse.
Now she was the one who must lie. It had never come easily for her even before she had become a committed Christian. Yet, she most certainly could not invite the man inside to show him just why it was that her husband was not answering. Pressure came at her from all sides now. Chief O’Donnell stared at her and she could almost feel the laser beams coming from his eyes as he waited for her to respond; from behind, the vampire awaited her, equally impatiently. His disdain was much worse than the chief’s. The worst thing that the chief could do was to fire her husband.
It was so difficult to think of what was right and what was wrong—what was logical. So she froze.
“Mrs. Lopez? Barbara,” he asked again. “Where’s Michael? He was downtown at a crime scene. He was then at the fire next door. That’s the last that he has been seen. Now, I have a report that he called in an officer down and we don’t know where that officer is, or even if there is one.”
Still Barbara did not move or attempt to say anything. It was as if she were frozen in place.
The chief’s eyes searched hers. “What is it you’re hiding?”
“Perhaps I might be able to answer that,” came a new voice.
Vincent was at the door suddenly, bringing Barbara out of her trance. She made an effort to satisfy the chief’s questions but Vincent silenced her with a look that spoke volumes. There was much that he could do to not only the man standing in the doorway, but to her family as well. A thought occurred to her now which she tried to shake out of her mind. It had to do with reasonable collateral losses. What was the chief of police to her when she had her children and husband to think about?
“And who are you?” the chief asked as Barbara pushed the thought away with a sense of shame.
“Won’t you come in and I shall explain it to you,” Vincent invited.
“No.” Barbara found her voice. “It’s late. Michael’s here, but he’s asleep. He was so exhausted by not just tonight, but by everything! They’ve been working too hard to try and end this madness!” She turned to Vincent and gave him a look. She knew it did not escape the chief’s notice.
“I can understand that,” the chief said. “However, there is only so much rest that we can have when people are dying all around this city. Now I’ve got Vanessa Jackson calling me, asking me where her husband is because she can’t find him. Your husband is on tape as having phoned desperately for an ambulance because there was an officer down. I’ve got EMT’s next door that report that Michael was leading them around only to find nothing.”
“Come in, sir,” Vincent interrupted. “I shall take you to him.”
“And just who in the hell are you exactly?” the chief demanded to know. His eyes seemed to be burning holes in Vincent’s forehead now as firmly as the vampire was studying him. His right hand moved to his waist near his holstered weapon and stayed there.
“I’m about to answer that!” Vincent sneered. “And when I do, you will need more than that weapon to stop me.”
“Vincent, no!” Barbara said, quickly moving between them, though neither had made any effort to advance toward their adversary. The chief popped the snap on the holster, freeing the weapon should he so choose to remove it.
“I’m here, Chief!” Michael said, catching everyone by surprise. He squeezed past the two in the doorway and out next to his boss. “I’m sorry for all of this.”
He reached out and took the man by the arm, moving him away from the doorway and down the walkway.
“Michael, what’s going on here? What happened to Jackson? And who the hell is that? Barbara heard O’Donnell ask.
“I’ll explain it all,” Michael said, glancing back toward the door and at Barbara as they continued to move into the yard.
The chief stood his ground and pointed his finger at Vincent who was still standing in the door by Barbara, watching everything. He shrugged Michael off of him. “And I want to know who that sonofabitch is right there!”
“Yes, sir,” Michael said.
“Tiffany,” Vincent said suddenly, not yet taking his eyes off the two men in the front yard, but specifically the much older man. Then he closed the door.
“Yes?” she answered.
“Prepare the children. We are leaving now.”