Authors: Scott Nicholson
CHAPTER
SEVEN
“It was 1896 and the hurricane
season was hard upon the Graveyard of the Atlantic.” Luke’s voice changed, his
grammar a little more formal. “Our Life-Saving Service crew was stationed a
mile from here and I was on foot patrol. The wind was high and the waves were
capping at ten to twenty feet, and the raindrops were thick as nails. I saw the
first broken barrels and other flotsam riding up on the surf, and I knew a ship
had run aground. I ran back to the base and rousted the crew, then returned to
the shipwreck site.”
It could have been Sabrina’s
imagination, but the sea seemed to splash and slap harder to punctuate the
tale.
“I could barely see, so I waded
into the breakers to locate the vessel. We later learned it was the
B.E.
Osterhagen
, a three-masted schooner sailing from Norfolk, but that night it
was just a sodden black hulk a hundred yards from shore, laden with a cargo of
180 screaming, scared souls. The crew set up the Lyle gun, a little cannon that
shot a line out to the ship so a crew member on board could drag out a heavier
safety line.
“The first two shots failed, and
our last stock of black powder was soaked by then. I volunteered to carry the
line out by hand. Our commander was reluctant, because it seemed foolhardy. Of
course, he didn’t know that it was impossible for me to drown.”
“Vampire fringe benefits,” Sabrina
said.
“After I talked him into it, I
tethered a line around my waist while the crew held the other end. I fought my
way through the surf and soon I was out over my head, although the ship was
resting on shoals barely fifteen feet deep. I saw someone swim past me from the
ship, evidently unwilling to wait for help or for the storm to ease. One of the
crew waded in and rescued him. I kept on, knowing most of the passengers would
be afraid to enter the water. I was more worried the crew might jump ship and
leave them all alone. Or maybe I was not worried at all. Maybe I was counting
on it.”
Sabrina shivered again. An angel
shiver was not the same as a mortal shiver. It seemed to vibrate down into the
earth and become a measurable physical force. “I am not sure I want to hear
this.”
“That’s why I have to tell you.
Then maybe you’ll give up your little fantasies of love and redemption.”
She started to proclaim that they
weren’t fantasies, but he continued before she could form a convincing case.
“I made it to the ship, and two of
its masts were shattered and slanted into the water, the weight of the sales
causing the ship to tilt. There was no hole in the hull that I could see, but
soon it would be taking on water. Some passengers, mostly men, were gripping
the rails and waving, either at me or at the shore. I reached one of the broken
masts and dragged myself aboard. The grateful men took the line from me and
began tugging, working their hands end over end to drag the heavier rescue line
from shore and tie it off. From there, the life-saving crew could come aboard
and use leather rescue breeches to carry people to safety, or the braver,
stronger passengers could follow the line themselves.
“Leaving the men to their mission,
I made my way to the cabins and passenger area. I found families huddled
together, eyes wide with fear. They seemed little relieved at my appearance.
What was one man against the mighty wrath of your merciless God?”
“He’s not merciless! He’s—”
“Here’s how His mercy works. I
escorted the families to the rescue line, women and children first. The deck
was slanted and slippery and it was slow going. The ship’s crew was mostly of
good mettle, endangering themselves to help the people who’d entrusted their
lives and safe passage to their care. The exhaustion and strain showed in their
faces, and soon they were counting on me to guide the rescue operation. My
fellow crew members were occupied with helping the weaker of the victims, and
soon I found myself isolated in the deepest corner of the ship.
“By then, the waves had breached
the deck and the ship was filling with water. Even though it had foundered and
couldn’t really sink, it was in danger of breaking apart from the stress of the
waves, so I knew we only had minutes in which to act. The last family was
huddled together on a cot, a young woman and her two boys. I don’t know whether
she was a widow, an unlucky prostitute, a lady of means taking a leisure trip,
or someone sailing to meet her husband in a new city and a fresh start to their
lives.
“I didn’t care. The proximity of
all that warm, living flesh had aroused me into a sickening state of arousal.
The roar of blood in their veins was louder than the pounding of the surf
against the planks. Even in the gloom of that cabin, I could see the woman’s
wide eyes gleaming with hope. She held one of her boys to me, the youngest, and
I could tell she would willingly sacrifice herself a million times over just to
keep her child alive. I smelled him, the sweet, sustaining substance of him,
the water of life and renewed unlife.”
Sabrina cringed and pulled her
blouse over her bare chest. Her nipples were hard and cold, and an ache tickled
something deep inside her immortal heart. “No,” she whispered, the denial
inaudible even to herself.
But Luke’s hearing was
preternaturally keen. “Yes,” he whispered back.
“You couldn’t.”
“I couldn’t
not
do it. That
is what I am, Sabrina.”
“But you were a life
saver
.”
“No. I was—and am—a vampire, doing
whatever it takes to survive.”
“But you did save people. Lots of
people. You just said so.”
“History records that the U.S.
Life Saving Service of Portsmouth Island saved 174 people on that turbulent
night. Six unfortunate souls were lost to the waves despite the crew’s valiant
efforts.”
“Did you—”
“I only fed on those three. The
others died of natural causes, at least if you consider drowning a part of
nature.”
“What…what did you do with the
bodies?”
“What any self-respecting vampire
would do. I tore their heads off so they wouldn’t be cursed to the same fate,
and then dumped them in the water for the sharks. Although in their bloodless
state, the corpses likely ended up feeding blue crabs on the bottom. It’s all
part of the cycle, Sabrina. The universe isn’t as pretty as you would like it
to be, with your white clouds, golden stairs, and endless harmony. Sometimes
it’s just meat and hunger.”
Sabrina took a lungful of air and
tried to savor its sustaining power. It tasted like seaweed and burned. “But
you joined the Life-Saving Service, and now you’re in the Coast Guard. You want
to be good. You want to do the right thing. And that means there’s hope of
redemption.”
“Hope is your currency, Sabrina.
Not mine. I joined the Life-Saving Service because of opportunity. Why worry
about having to hide bodies where people would eventually notice and cause trouble
for me? Where better to claim victims than in a place where victims are
expected?”
She took his hand despite the
hammering alarms in her head. “You…you’re not a monster, Luke. I know you are
good. At your core, you
are
good.”
He smiled a little, and his lips
held ancient sorrows, all the weariness of a world that would never get it
right. “You are what you eat. And I am a bottomless pit of death, pain, horror,
and blood.”
Sabrina dug her fingernails into
his arm. “Damn you, you are on our side.
My
side. Why do you care if the
Gog and Magog take over the world, then? If all you care about is your own
selfish needs, then why are you helping me? Seems like you’d be better off just
waiting for the apocalypse so you could feast to your rotten heart’s content.”
He shook free of her grip and
turned his gaze from the wreckage of his past. His eyes burned into hers.
“Maybe there’s just enough humanity left in me to commit the sin of pride.”
“But you came here as a watchman
first. Not as a blood-drinking member of the Life Saving Service. That proves
you are on our side.”
“I’ve only been here a couple of
hundred years. I haven’t had time to make up my mind about which side I’m on.”
“I suspect your loyalties change
with each new opportunity.” Sabrina rose and gathered her clothes, pulling them
into place and buttoning her blouse. Her bikini bottoms were sodden and the
elastic had sprung, so she wadded them up and stuffed them in Luke’s back
pocket. “And I guess that’s all I am to you: just another opportunity.”
Luke shrugged, gazing past her and
up across the dunes, the moon making a iridescent streak in his long, dark
hair. “I never promised anything, so I can’t break any promises.”
From the direction of the
abandoned village, they heard a voice on the wind. “Hello! Anybody home?”
CHAPTER
EIGHT
“Roy,” Sabrina said. “Guess his
little beach party with Cherry didn’t last.”
“Or maybe he’s out of beer and
ready to head back to the mainland,” Luke responded.
“Give him a break, okay? He’s only
human. He may be an asshole, but at least he’s not sucking the juice out of
women and children.”
Luke tugged his jeans back into
place, adjusted the diminishing bulge in his crotch, and zipped them. “I have
no idea what Roy does or doesn’t suck. Why don’t you ask Cherry?”
As if on cue, Cherry appeared in
the gap between the dunes, no doubt following the natural path from the village
to the beach. “Oh, there you are! We’ve been looking everywhere.”
“Just took a quick dip,” Luke
said, shaking the sand from his shirt.
Sabrina saw Cherry peering at
Luke’s muscular chest, a “Yeah, right” expression mixed in with the barely
disguised hunger in her eyes.
If you want him, you can have
him. He’s only good for one thing, and I’ve used that up for the moment.
“What’s Roy doing?” Sabrina asked,
rolling up the blanket and slipping into her Crocs.
“Exploring the village.” She
lowered her voice a little, thinking that Luke couldn’t hear. She didn’t know
about his unnaturally keen ears. “He’s kind of creeping me out. I was afraid to
be alone with him.”
“I thought you guys were dating.”
“Yeah. Movies, dinner, public
stuff. But this is the first time I’ve really been
alone
with him, if
you know what I mean.”
Maybe Sabrina had been wrong about
Roy. He certainly didn’t sound like a human. At least not the male part of the
species, anyway. Cherry was a little flaky, but she was a hottie.
“What exactly is he doing besides
belching?” Luke said.
“He waded back out to the boat and
got something from the footlocker. A canvas bag.”
Luke looked back out at the sea,
which seemed to have grown more turbulent and frothy. The moon was still bright
but the clouds had thickened.
“Where did you say you met him?”
Sabrina asked.
“The Bean Scene. Came in asking if
there were any uninhabited islands on the Outer Banks.”
“That’s odd,” Luke said. “He’s an
experienced sailor with a big boat. He should know these waters. And you can’t
sell real estate if it is part of the national parks system.”
“That’s not the weirdest part.”
Cherry glanced down at her sandals. “When we walked through the village, he
didn’t have the slightest interest in—umm….Some of those houses still have
furniture in them. Beds and stuff.”
“So, the island isn’t a place to
shop for antiques,” Sabrina said. “The villagers just packed up and moved out,
a few at a time. It’s stood empty for more than 50 years.”
“Roy didn’t care about any of the
history. Or about trying out one of the beds. He said, ‘Well, that’s just fewer
folks to bury.’”
“You really know how to pick them,
Cherry.”
She pouted. “Not everybody gets so
lucky. Of course, not all of us are sweet and stacked, either. Plus that
whatever-it-is you have. The ‘it’ factor.”
“I’ve got problems you could never
imagine,” Sabrina said, losing patience with her friend.
“We may
all
have problems,”
Luke said, then to Cherry, “What exactly was he interested in?”
“Besides beer, you mean?”
“Yeah.”
“He keep looking up, scanning the
tops of the buildings. Wondered which of the buildings was highest.”
“Maybe he wants to commit
suicide,” Sabrina said.
“Good luck with that,” Cherry
said. “The highest place is the old Methodist Church steeple, and you’d be
lucky to break a nail dropping from it.”
“Damn,” Luke said, heading up the
path.
“What?” Cherry said, stepping aside.
“I have a bad feeling about this.”
As a vampire, Luke didn’t exactly
have the power of flight, but he took great, bounding leaps that covered twenty
feet at a stretch. Sabrina wasn’t ready to run out her wings and take off, not
in front of Cherry. Plus she had no idea if this was an actual emergency or
just a test.
Still, she hurried after him,
keeping her speed below superhuman.
“Roy!” Luke shouted.
No answer except the rising wind.
They entered the first sandy
street in the village, the bare houses like mausoleums harboring lost secrets.
Sabrina could almost imagine the former inhabitants sitting in rockers by the
black windows, looking out on the ghost town as the sand, wind, and rain eroded
their memories and scrubbed all trace of them from the face of the Earth.
Perhaps she had encountered one or two of them in heaven.
Strangers then, strangers now.
The church steeple was near the
center of the village, its peaked roof rising thirty feet in the air and the
spire of its steeple gleaming in the moonlight. It was built near a marsh that
reeked of mud and rot. Mosquitoes swarmed around Sabrina, and she swatted at
them. She wondered if they were biting Luke, and if they would then turn into
little vampire mosquitoes.
The church was dark, of course, but
it was in better repair than most of the abandoned buildings. The park service
must have maintained it as a scenic attraction, or maybe some mainland
volunteer group had taken on its care as a mission project. Sabrina wondered
whether Luke’s heightened sense picked up something she couldn’t. Her angelic
powers were largely limited to the ability to sprout wings. Well, and not die,
either.
Something flashed in the church
steeple, in the opening of the belfry. The belfry had open windows on each
side, its old shutters battened down against storms. Ahead of her, Luke had
bounded to the church doors and was attempting to break in.
He slammed his shoulder against
the door, causing wood to crack.
“Luke,” she shouted. “That’s
sacrilege.”
“If Roy is what I think he is,
then there’s a bigger evil going on than a little breaking and entering. He’s
playing with fire.”
Sabrina didn’t like the way Luke
had said “what” instead of “who.” She was the agent of God and therefore should
be highly tuned to the presence of evil. Roy was a dim spirit, to be sure, but
she’d detected nothing that should alarm anyone.
“If he turns into a werewolf, this
is going to get weird,” she said.
“Werewolves don’t exist, silly.”
“What’s the deal, then?”
“That’s a signal flare from the
boat.”
“You think he’s going to burn down
the church?”
Luke futilely pounded on the thick
church doors. “He’s a beacon for bad things.”
The strange reddish light flashed
again in the belfry. Sabrina leaned back to see what was going on up there that
had Luke so worried.
Roy cackled with laughter above
them. “One if by land, two if by sea!” he drunkenly bellowed.
He thrust the sparking tubes out
the belfry window, one in each hand. They were distress flares, shooting
red-orange light into the night and casting an eerie glow across the village.
“He’s summoning them,” Luke said.
“We have to stop him.”
Luke scrambled up the belfry wall,
with the quick and graceful scuttle of a spider.
“Luke!” Sabrina shouted after him.
He glanced back at her, still
scrambling, but his hand jammed hard against a weather-beaten board, which
shattered beneath his grip.
His screech pierced the night and
he plummeted to the ground, landing in the sand with a dull
thud
.
Sabrina rushed to Luke’s side, but
Roy’s shouting stole her attention. Roy frantically waved the flares, his
grinning face made lurid by the light. He glared out to sea as if calling up
some monster from the deep.
“Stop him,” Luke whispered, his
eyes rolling up in his head. Sabrina had never seen him the least bit weak,
hurt, or vulnerable, and his pale complexion shocked her.
“What’s wrong?” she said, running
her hands over his body to check for wounds. He gave a weak grimace and turned
up his hand. A fat splinter had gouged his palm, the gray nubby end of it
protruding from his flesh. Black ichor oozed from around the wound, a sluggish
substance that was far more horrifying than blood would have been.
She’d never stopped to consider
what coursed through his veins, and though he was capable of….
fluids
…she
had assumed he was basically like a human, only better.
“Is that all?” she asked, hiding
the revulsion caused by the gooey, gross substance. “You get a sliver and
you’re down for the count?”
“Church wood,” he muttered.
“Christ,” she said.
“Not quite. But Roy must have
known…must have known about me….”
Cherry yelled Roy’s name from the
far end of town. She would arrive on the scene in a couple of minutes.
“What’s he up to?” Sabrina asked
Luke as she grabbed the jagged end of the splinter.
“Ow-
weeee
,” he groaned,
face twisted in pain at the contact.
“Hush and take it like a man.”
He grabbed her wrist with his good
hand, and the lack of strength was shocking. “You don’t understand,” he said. “
Church
wood
. If you pull it out, I die.”
“And if I don’t?”
“I die slower.”
She released his wounded hand. “I
always figured a man would abandon me at the church steps. I just thought it
would be on my wedding day.”
His grimace revealed his fangs.
That meant he was hurt, hungry, or horny. Given the circumstances, she went
with “hurt.” The red glint of his eyes had darkened, like clouds crossing the
flaming moon.
“I need to get you to a doctor,”
she said, knowing it was stupid even as she uttered the words.
“
9-1-1, I got a vampire here
bleeding to death. Can you send an ambulance and a priest?
”
“You need to stop him,” he said,
summoning his strength to give her a fierce glare.
Roy’s laughter echoed across the
ghost town, somehow riding above the distant wash of waves and the breeze that
rattled the loose tin of rusted rooftops. The flares had burned down to tiny
nubs, but still he waved them, even though they surely had scorched his flesh
by now.
“What’s the big deal?” Sabrina
said. “Are you afraid he’ll burn down the church?”
“No, I’m afraid he might burn down
the
world
.”
She probed the splinter again.
“Jeez, Luke, I never figured you for a drama queen.”
“I’m serious,” he hissed. “Stop
him, now. There were plenty of flares in the boat.”
“So?”
“Don’t you feel the change?”
She lifted her head. The breeze
had shifted direction, blowing in from the sound now, and the air had grown
palpably warmer. The salty aroma had given way to an acrid stench like the
smoke of a match.
“Smells bad, like the devil
farted.”
“Worse than that. Gog dookie is
about to hit the fan.”
“No…” Sabrina stood and peered out
to the ridge of dunes on the edge of town. Cherry called for Roy, still several
streets away.
“Stop him before he calls them
in!” Luke said.
“One if by land, two if by sea,”
Roy yelled.
“Look out!” Luke yelled.
Sabrina heard a fizzing and
sputtering above her and danced to the side just in time to avoid the sparking
intensity of the dying flares. They bounced away and quickly extinguished
themselves in the sand.
“Hey, you drunken asshole!”
Sabrina yelled up at the belfry.
“Angels shouldn’t cuss,” Luke
said, trying unsuccessfully to roll onto his side and rise.
By now the stench was oppressive,
and the wind was warm enough to raise a sweat on Sabrina’s hairline. Roy
ignited two more flares and continued his mad arm-waving, only now he seemed to
be ranting in Latin.
“God, please tell me he’s not
Catholic,” Sabrina said. A muted rumble came in answer, which meant nothing.
“He’s summoning the Gog, Sabrina.
I’ve seen it before. You’ve got to trust me.”
Trust? A man?
A VAMPIRE man?
“Hey, I’ve only been dead three
months, and even I’m not that dumb,” she said.
“Why do you think I’m here?”
“To be my man meat and let me save
your soul?”
“This is no time to be cute.”
Actually, for an angel, “cute” was
part of the deal. None of the Renaissance artists ever painted ugly angels,
although some of the angels were a bit on the chubby side. “What’s so strange
about Roy? He acts like most of the rich sailboat brats in Beaufort. Maybe a
little more pyro than some, but hey, we all have our downsides.”
“Not all of us have a
Gog
side, though.”
Until now, Luke had never spoken
of any encounters with the Gog. Sabrina had always assumed he was working on
faith, a watchman drafted by some other vampire long ago, appointed a reluctant
defender of the world order. And, in exchange, he got to keep feeding.
But what if Luke’s duty in the
Life Saving Service was just one of many tours he’d made? What if he’d been
monitoring this coastline for centuries? What if God had a role for vampires in
the Divine Plan?
Maybe there’s more to this guy
than drop-dead sexy.
“Fly,” he said.
She looked up past the belfry to
the high heavens. “God, this wasn’t in the job description.”
The sky rumbled again, most likely
an offshore squall gathering force, but she thought she heard a few words in
the noise. She couldn’t be sure, but it sounded like “Smell the glove.”
Thanks, Big Guy. Preesh the
guidance
.
She took a deep breath—air seemed
like a strange substance now that she was an angel, as if her lungs could smell
and taste and even
see
the molecules of nitrogen and oxygen. And the
stuff was damp and salty, yet it made her feel light, strong, and alive.