***
Tiffany was stunned. The young vampire felt such stirring now as she had never felt before; such passion. She recalled making love to that boy that she had known in what seemed now to have been some other life many years before and wondered how the fumblings of a naive boy could possibly compete with the power and strength of a lover who controlled lives and had obviously seen the world. Tiffany could not now even recall the boy’s name. Not only that, but when images crept back of their past lovemaking, it was no longer his face but Vincent’s. It was Vincent who was suddenly holding her down on the couch or bed or floor. It was Vincent’s rough tongue doing wonderful things to her.
She felt so many wonderful sensations; among them was what it must feel to be a child’s balloon as it is accidentally released into the air to float away to parts unknown. But it was her beloved Vincent who reached up and caught her before she could be lost forever.
“Tiffany, my love.”
“Yes?”
“Though I would dally further and farther, we must not. Not yet.”
“Yes.”
“Do you understand me?”
“Yes.”
“Good. There is much to do.”
“I would do anything.”
“Would you?”
“Yes.”
“That is good, my dear, because I have need of you.”
“Tell me.”
4:20 a.m.
Lainie Bishop had had an extremely rough week. It had begun with two police officers, that she had known well, dying horrible deaths during her shift. She remembered speaking to them, and a short while later, they were gone. It had taken her a couple of days to get her legs back beneath her. She missed work and didn’t speak to anyone, not even Jeremy. She had only been seeing him for a few weeks, and although she could definitely feel the love beginning to swell between them, she needed some time to heal from the pain of losing those officers that she had been responsible for. Both he and her dad phoned her several times a day during the entire time that she had been off. It bugged her, but she could never be mad at either one of them so she endured it. Her dad phoned a couple of times last evening as well, so she finally drove over and had dinner with him before she went off to work.
It was not something that she had spent any real time deliberating about, just a back of her mind kind of hope that she could simply get re-acclimated with one quiet and by-the-numbers kind of night. She knew that the city was being supported by members of other police departments, and that was going to be more work for her, having all of these patrol cars crawling all over town. Still she hoped for the best.
Unfortunately, on her first real night back behind the desk, she was hit not only with chaos, but well more than that. Now, she found herself being sent home.
She pulled her 2000 Volkswagen Beetle slowly out of the parking lot and her eyes followed the front entrance of the police department as she slowly crawled forward toward the street. Just then, she noticed a tall shape on the sidewalk. Anywhere else she may have ignored him and continued on her way; however, although she was being ordered off the premises by Detective Lopez, that did not make her any less an officer of this city, and she would continue to do her part. No matter what.
“May I help you?” she asked, opening the driver side window.
“I sincerely hope so, my dear,” the odd-looking man said.
He leaned forward and rested his hands upon her door. Long fingernails curled over the side of the door, and Lainie wondered whether or not the stranger in the dark might be a musician. She had always adored Spanish guitar playing, ever since she’d been a girl and her father had taken her to Spain one summer to visit her dead mother’s family. It had been a promise kept on her mother’s—a too-young cancer victim—deathbed to take her to the place of her ancestors.
“I am looking for four adults, one child and two babies.”
4:26 a.m.
In the Dispatching center at the front of the police station, Detective Michael Lopez saw his dispatcher to the door and then quickly locked it behind her. He took one last peek in the parking lot, seeing only Lainie Bishop as she began to drive away. Then he moved back across the lobby and cleared the door that he had propped open so that it would not lock behind him. Now he allowed it to do just that. It closed with a bang, followed by an extremely audible click as the automatic locking mechanism activated. In the dark and silence of the early hour, it sounded like a distant solitary cannon shot.
Nathaniel appeared in the entrance of the hallway when Michael glanced toward that direction.
“Everyone is well,” he said, as if reading his mind.
Michael stopped and surveyed the figure before him. He had grown comfortable with the vampire, but he was just that—a vampire. Just like the one that was out there behind some very weak locks, sheet rock and windows.
“Good,” he remarked.
“How about you?” Nathaniel asked.
Michael thought the question over for a moment before answering. “If I were at full strength would I be any help to you against that thing out there?”
“Perhaps not,” Nathaniel replied.
4:31 a.m.
Barbara and Jerod tended to the twins who did not seem to need anything, or even notice that they had been awake for a very long while. They acted as if they were neither famished nor exhausted. Barbara had changed both of their diapers. Both had needed it, but neither had complained.
Mark continued to simply recline in the chair while Vanessa sat beside him, quietly, allowing him to rest. Barbara knew he was still awake, although he held his eyes closed as if he were not. She knew this because he would shuffle in is seat periodically, reach up to scratch an ear or his beard and because his breathing was never the same and appeared labored. Barbara looked upon Vanessa’s countenance. She could see a great many questions there. Why she held back from asking them, she did not know, but was grateful. She didn’t have many answers.
“Mom?” Jerod broke the silence.
“Yes, honey?”
“What’s going to happen?”
Barbara reached out and touched her son’s left shoulder, smiling warmly, at least the best that she could under the terrible circumstances. After all, there they all were, huddled together in the darkened police station, tired and wounded from all that they had been forced to endure.
“Are you scared?” she asked. Jerod looked down at the floor and said nothing. Barbara moved from her son’s shoulder to his chin, lifting it gently so she might be able to look into his eyes. “It’s okay to be scared. Everyone feels a little bit scared.”
She noticed her friend Vanessa looking their way and gave her the briefest of smiles. “Aunt Vanessa’s scared. Your dad is scared.” She thought of Nathaniel and paused. “We’re all scared. But no one is going to let anything happen to you or your brother or your sister. I promise.”
“Is Mr. Nathaniel scared?” Jerod asked, noting the omission.
It was the first time that he had ever questioned about the mysterious stranger that had become a big part of his mother’s life, she realized. Most of the interaction had occurred when he had been either away or sleeping, so he had not really been introduced. The twins knew the vampire, of course, but they were too little to know anything, and would, no doubt, forget after a few days once he had departed from their lives. That was just how it went with small children. It was the folks who were in their lives daily that they became comfortable with.
“I’m sure that he is a bit worried as well, yes.”
“Mom,” Jerod continued. “Just who is he anyway?”
Barbara sighed as she thought about what it was that she might be able to report about her new friend. Once again, she noticed that Vanessa was looking extremely interested in that same question as well. And eager to hea
r the answer.
“A friend.” She offered no other explanation.
“What kind of friend?”
It was Vanessa who asked the question now. As she watched Barbara struggle with her response, she did not notice as Mark’s eyes finally opened. It was not in the direction of the conversation that they turned.
It was toward something else.
4:45 a.m.
Michael Lopez surveyed the blinking lights and listened along for radio traffic. There wasn’t much. He had lowered the volume so that it would not distract them from any local noises. He was surprised that not one of the multiple patrol units or even members of the fire crew had attempted to make any form of contact with the dispatcher. Since the current dispatcher was no doubt making plans to curl up in bed for the approaching day, and the fact that he was too exhausted to fill in for her, he was glad that no one seemed interested in following them.
“Michael,” Nathaniel spoke up. There was a directness to the tone.
“Yes.”
“It is time.”
Michael spun. The vampire had found them. He was staring at them through the thick glass at the front entrance, his nose pressed firmly against the glass. He stood there like some statue that high school kids had removed from a rival’s park and placed there to scare the graveyard dispatcher. He wasn’t some young college age woman attending to the police matters in the lonely hours of the day, but a seasoned police detective. And yet, it carried the same intended result.
“Shit!” Michael whispered.
“My sentiments exactly.”
4:45 a.m.
With hardly much effort at all, Mark Jackson jumped up from the chair that had just moments before seemed to be keeping him from falling onto the floor. Now, he cast it aside as if it were nothing at all.
“Mark? Where are you going?” Vanessa asked, stunned, as he moved to leave the room.
“Barbara.” He turned toward the group, ignoring Vanessa’s question and addressed her instead. “Take Vanessa and the kids and lock yourselves down the hall in the soft room.”
The soft room was an elongated but tiny room for the interviewing of children or female victims and furnished by the Junior Women’s Club of Kingsburg. It contained a couch, chairs and a table or two. Perhaps more importantly, there was a plethora of stuffed animals for the kids to play with.
“Mark!” Vanessa protested as she watched him turn to leave. “Where are you going? You’re in no shape to go anywhere but the hospital!”
“I’m far better than anyone suspects.”
He finally glanced her direction. He could see that she was dumbfounded by this admonition. Her face twisted at his tone and he knew she was hurt, but there was nothing he could do about it now.
“Mark?” Vanessa said, rising to her feet as if to follow. Barbara jumped up as well, reaching out for her friend’s arm as she did so.
“Vanessa.” Barbara tried to sound soothing as she attempted to stop her from following after her husband.
“No,” she said, pulling the arm away.
“We need to do as he said. We need to lock ourselves up in the back of the building!”
“You go on ahead and do that!” she yelled. “My husband is out of his mind with shock or something and I need to take care of him.” Mark stopped at the doorway and turned back before crossing the threshold, waiting.
“I don’t know what it is, but whatever it is, Michael and Nathaniel will take care of him.”
“Michael needs help himself!” Vanessa continued to shout. “The last time I saw him, he could barely stand. Aren’t you worried about him in the least?”
Now it was Barbara who raised her voice. “Of course I’m worried about my husband! Don’t think for a minute that I’m not! But I have more to think about than just him. Plus I have you and Mark! Right now, I have got to get you and these kids behind a secure door. And I’m talking right now!”
Vanessa stared at Barbara—usually calm, gentle Barbara—in surprise. Then she half glanced over at him, hoping for some support. He gave her none.
“’Nessa,” Mark said, pointing down the hallway in the intended direction. “Take the children and go with Barbara. We don’t have time to argue. This place is going to become a war zone in about two minutes.”
“Now how do you know that?” she replied, putting her hands to her hips as if to take her stand against everyone in the room. Her cracking voice betrayed her, however, as if on some level she knew that her husband was correct in the assessment.
A voice at the front of the building confirmed it. It was Nathaniel. “Barbara, take them now! Vincent is here!”
Mark did not wait any longer, but he turned and headed toward the sound of Nathaniel’s voice.