“What will you do with us when it is time for you to lay down to rest?” Barbara said into the darkness.
She was sitting on one side of Vanessa Jackson’s loveseat. Casually, as if they were family or perhaps old friends, the vampire reclined beside her. Prior to her speaking, they had sat mostly in silence. They were alone in the room. In stark contrast with the houses surrounding them, the shades were open wide, revealing the neighborhood outside. The only light came from the street lamp directly across the street.
“I have not yet decided. There are a few options.”
Barbara turned away from it. “Which of those will I like?”
The vampire grinned. She could not see it, of course, but could feel its presence. “None.”
“Why does it have to be this way?” she asked, looking absently at the reflection of the light that came through the open window and landing on Vanessa’s hardwood floor. “Why do more people have to die? Nathaniel is dead. Go in peace.”
“Yes,” Vincent said. “Everyone keeps telling me this. Yet I believe none of you, including young Tiffany. Trusting her was a mistake, I see this now. When I locate a pile of foul ash tonight that smells precisely like him, only then will I depart.”
“And what will happen to Tiffany?”
“Unlike Nathaniel, I find that I do not make close acquaintances with females,” he said almost mournfully. “Perhaps you may be the first.”
Barbara ignored that comment as best as she could. “You will tire of her, and then what? Kill her?”
“Certainly not!” Vincent turned to face her better, resting his left arm across the back of the loveseat, his right on the arm rest. He appeared rather dumbfounded at her question. “There are rules even I must follow. Nathaniel never told you this?”
“He told me some things.”
“There have always been vampires. The world is full of them.”
He raised his hands palm up for effect. Barbara could see his hands outstretched, but only that. Vincent was still mostly a voice in the dark.
“Perhaps we could not fill New York or London or Rio de Janero, but our members are there and there and there,” he said, pointing at imaginary locations before them as if they were reclining in some general’s map room. He motioned to himself. “And here.”
“So what will become of her, then?” she asked, still concerning herself with the girl.
“I will probably simply give her her freedom at some point.”
“Freedom to what? Roam some strange locale? Some strange country?”
“Freedom to live.”
“Freedom to live!” Barbara turned in the voice’s direction beside her. The vampire sank back in the chair and feigned surprise at the woman’s tone. “Her life is over! Her house has been practically burned to the ground. Her parents will have to presume that their daughter is dead, too. What freedom?” An ironic thought occurred to her. It gave her voice a confidence. “And what if, without any life for her here, she instead decides to hunt you down as you did Nathaniel?”
“Please! The girl adores me.” Vincent laughed. “Worships me, in fact.”
“But you constantly bark orders at her and berate her!”
“Never,” the vampire said, feigning surprise with the accusation.