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“Oh, yeah. Dandy. I got two dead kids lying in a damn walk-in refrigerator, not even the dignity of a burial. I got the town breathing down my neck for a cull. I’ve still got no idea who our killer is. Things could not be going more swimmingly.”
She slammed the freezer door shut.
“You’re right.” Tucker pulled up his hood and walked toward the door.
Barbara stared after him. “Where are you going?”
“To speak to Athelinda.”
“Now?”
“You said yourself, it’s got to be done eventually. And she knows something.”
“Fine. Then I’m coming with you.”
“No humans are allowed in the settlement. I go alone.”
“You go alone. Really? I know it’s been twenty-five years, but that macho crap was old back then.”
He sighed. “It’s not like that. You’d slow me down.”
“Because I’m a woman?”
“No, because you’re overweight and unfit.” Before she could retort, he continued: “Look, I’m the only one who knows the way to the settlement. And shouldn’t one of us stay here, to keep an eye on the bodies?”
Barbara bristled. She was angry, but sometimes, you had to batten down your pride. He was right. It would make more sense for Tucker to go alone. And yes, someone should stay here. And yes, she should cut back on the carbs.
“Okay,” she said grudgingly. “Keep your phone on. I want to be able to contact you.”
He nodded.
“And Tucker?”
“Yeah.”
“Try not to get yourself killed…again.”
55
Beau sat in his favorite armchair, the one Patricia had always nagged him to replace.
“We could get you a brand-new leather recliner,” she would say.
“I’m good as I am,” he would reply.
“It’s old, worn and ugly,” she would say.
“So am I,” he would reply, and she would laugh. Every time.
And he had been good. For a long while. Coasting along like an old ship on familiar waters. But even familiar waters have darker depths. Bad things lurking below the surface, just waiting for a chance to drag you down.
Beau had always believed that what they did with the vampyr boy and his kin was right. It was justice. It was the order of things. Beau believed in the order of things. Good and bad. Right and wrong. Saints and sinners. Of course, most men were a combination of both, but God was a forgiving God.
Beau had grown up hunting vampyrs. Most men around these parts had. Vampyrs were the devil made flesh. Undead, soulless. Humans had a right to kill them. A duty, even. Satan shall not walk this earth. You owed it to God to call out evil, to chase it down, banish it. That was what his father and grandfather had taught him.
But his grandfather had also fraternized with vampyrs. Beau learned that as he grew older. He also learned that his grandfather was a cruel man when he wanted to be. Not to Beau. But he had seen the scars his grandmother bore on her face and arms.
“Clumsy on the stairs. Splashed cooking oil on my face. Burned myself on the oven.”
