The Vampire Evolution Trilogy (Book 1): Death of an Immortal: Read online

  Let Terrill be a fool. No doubt his decision had to do with his qualms about killing people. But it didn’t show greater discipline: it showed weakness.

  Horsham would feed when he wanted. A vampire was meant to prey on the weak. It was his nature.

  Chapter 6

  In the morning, Terrill looked up Howe in the phone book. There were no listings for that name. He went to the motel lobby and logged on to the computer there. That was a little more helpful, but when he called the Howes who were listed, none recognized the name Jamie Lee.

  Had she written a false name in the motel register after all? No, he was certain from the easy, casual way she had written, and the way she had hesitated in the middle and then shrugged, as if catching herself in the mistake, that she had written her real name.

  Terrill put the name “Jamie Lee” into the search field and added “Bend, Oregon.” Up popped Jamie Lee Hardaway, Bend High School, Class of 2010. He looked up Hardaway, and there was only one family listed. He called the number and asked for Jamie, and an older man answered in a whiskey-drinking-and-cigarette-smoking voice, “She isn’t here. Can I take a message?”

  He hung up. They hadn’t heard yet. He was going to have to wait. He didn’t think he should be the one to break the news: “Hello. Your daughter is dead. I killed her.”

  Which just emphasized how insane this was.

  What did he think he was going to accomplish? Was he just curious? Or did he want to make amends? How could he make up for what he’d done? Did he want forgiveness? Could he confess and still escape? What good would it do?

  He didn’t know. But he had to try.

  #

  “Do you have family? I mean, of course you have family, but do you keep in touch?”

  “My family is all gone.” Terrill’s tone didn’t invite further discussion, but the endearing thing about this girl was that she overrode such considerations. She went right for the emotional heart of things. Terrill found himself responding to her candidness despite himself.

  “I’m sorry,” Jamie said. “I’ve got a really complicated family. My mom’s been married five times. My last name is my father’s; he was her fourth husband. I have four stepsisters and six stepbrothers. I grew up with too much family, too far away. My little sister from Mom’s last marriage and I are close, though.”

  Terrill didn’t answer at first, though her silence invited a response. He barely remembered his human family. He’d taken to the vampire life immediately. It was the vampires who had truly created him; who had taught him their ways so that he wouldn’t be found out the first time he fed; who had protected him and traveled with him, not out of the goodness of their hearts, but because they had learned that a clan of vampires survived better than a vampire who was alone.

  Still, he’d come to know them and, if not to love them, at least to become familiar with their ways.

  Either way, the answer was the same. They were all dead.

  Except for one. One who was his… brother. Yes, “brother” was probably the best way to describe Horsham. A brother––and a mortal enemy. Mortal for one of them if ever they should meet again. Terrill didn’t want that. He’d fled rather than kill his “brother.”

  Horsham was still out there. Still hunting for him. There had been hired humans over the years who had tracked Terrill down, and even though he had fed on them before they could report his whereabouts, the fact that they’d been sent after him was confirmation that Horsham had not forgotten nor forgiven.

  “I have a brother,” Terrill said grudgingly. “But we are estranged.”

  “Don’t give up!” Jamie exclaimed. “If he’s still alive, you ought to get back together. Really!”

  “I don’t think he’d like that.”

  “But you don’t know that for sure. How long has it been?”

  “Years and years,” he answered. Fifty-three years, to be exact.

  “See? Maybe things have changed.”

  She cuddled up to him, ran her fingers across his chest and then down his body. “Again?” he muttered.

  “Yes, please,” she said, kissing his neck.

  This girl is an Earth Mother, he thought. Nurturing, loving. What was she doing here? Why was she with a stranger? What was her real story?

  Maybe he should try to contact Horsham. Try to make peace.

  Even as he thought it, even as he fell into Jamie’s arms, he knew that the girl’s spell was an illusion, that such a thought would never stand the light of day. That it would burst into flame when exposed to sunlight just as surely as his own body would.

  He wished he had her naïveté again. Her innocence. But he was too old, too old by centuries, to fall for such foolishness.

  Such a beautiful girl. She needed to go home to her family. He would make sure of it, he decided. In the morning, he would give her enough money to go home and choose a different lifestyle. Such a pure spirit must not be smothered by the sins of the big city.

  Those were his last thoughts before falling asleep.

  Before waking up to an empty mirror and that terrible, deadly hunger.

  #

  Terrill waited until nightfall before venturing out and reached the bank by 5:45. He made sure that his accounts were at a bank that was open until six every day, though he did most of his banking online. At the bank, he withdrew $500,000 as a cashier’s check, causing a bit of stir. The manager tried to act like it was all in a day’s business, but the young clerks stared at Terrill with interest.

  It couldn’t be helped.

  Terrill had all the money he could ever need. Horsham had a saying: “Compound interest is a vampire’s best friend.” It was amazing how much money he’d accrued over the past few centuries.

  He walked one block over and opened another account (again getting curious glances) and asked for some blank checks. He found a printer still open and had the name “Prestigious Insurance” printed on the tops of the blank checks. Then he went back to his motel and ordered a delivery from the butcher shop.

  Out of curiosity, he called the Hardaways’ number again. He got a busy signal. An hour later, it was still busy, and from that he deduced that Jamie’s death had been reported and the Hardaways were busy dealing with the consequences.

  Terrill tried to stay in the motel, but he wasn’t the slightest bit sleepy. TV was all sitcoms and reality shows, and they bored him. He hadn’t thought to bring a book.

  At about midnight, he ventured out on foot.

  There was a public park, Pioneer Park, along the Deschutes River, a few blocks from the motel. It was dark except for some the lights on one side of the bridge.

  Despite the cold, there was a couple making love under some blankets down by the riverside. No one could have seen them, though a passerby might have heard the lovers’ soft exclamations––no one human, that is.

  Terrill could see them clearly. The night was brighter for him than day was for humans. He could see every blade of grass, every goose turd that littered the park, the individual hairs on the heads of the lovers. He could see under their skins to the blood beneath, running like the branches of a tree, flowing to ever-smaller capillaries.

  The blood called to him. They couldn’t see him or hear him, he knew. He was, for all intents and purposes, invisible to the human eye. He was a ghost, a monster of the dark––a vampire. He stood over them and watched their slow movements become frenzied, their blood racing.

  Once, he would’ve waited for their climax and then fallen upon them and ripped them into small pieces, consuming their blood, their flesh. And then, as casually as a diner throwing away the remnants of his meal, he would have tossed the bloody bones into the river.

  Terrill walked away.

  Without consciously deciding to go there, he found himself back at the motel. He lay on the bed, staring into the bright darkness.

  For a long time, he’d always been able to rationalize killing humans who he decided deserved to die. Then Mary had come along and changed him. Now
another woman had entered his life for a short time, and again, he had killed without wanting to.

  He would never kill again, no matter what.

  Not now.

  Not after Jamie. She hadn’t deserved it––she was the last person who had deserved it, and because of that, because of her goodness, he was done killing, forever.

  Chapter 7

  “Officer Carlan.” Brosterhouse’s voice boomed across the lobby. He accentuated “Officer” as if to emphasize the distinction between a homicide detective and a lowly patrolman. Obviously, the Portland detective had uncovered the restraining order. “You left Bend at six a.m.?”

  “Check with my sergeant,” Carlan said. “But yeah.”

  Brosterhouse was carrying a manila folder, and now, as they stood in the lobby with everyone looking on, he opened it. It was filled with copies of paperwork from the ongoing dispute between Carlan and Jamie.

  “Can’t we take this somewhere private?” Carlan asked, his voice low and even.

  Brosterhouse ignored him; he pulled one of the pages out of the file. “These letters make for interesting reading. Especially this one––and I quote: ‘If I should be found dead, it will be Richard Carlan who killed me.’”

  “That’s bullshit,” Carlan said, his face growing red as everyone in the lobby, civilian and cop, stared at him. “We just had a misunderstanding. We were working it out.”

  “So she ran to Portland and became a prostitute because you were working it out?”

  “She was hysterical. Crazy! I was on my way here to pick her up.”

  Brosterhouse stared at him with an expression Carlan recognized. It was the hardnosed skepticism that cops automatically turned on anyone they considered guilty. “If that’s true, I could’ve arrested you. The restraining order is pretty clear.”

  Carlan had always wondered what he would do if he was accused of a crime he didn’t commit. Would he immediately clam up? Call a lawyer? The rational and experienced cop inside him knew without a doubt that was the best thing to do. But he fell back on the same protestations he’d heard a thousand times, from guilty and innocent alike. “I didn’t do it. She was already dead when I got there.”

  “Your alibi is shaky,” Brosterhouse said. “We know you were in Bend the night before, but that gave you plenty of time to drive over the pass.”

  “But I loved her!” God, how pathetic that sounded. How guilty! They always said that, murderers who stabbed the “one they loved” a hundred times, who slashed and slashed until the “one they loved” was obliterated.

  “You are no longer allowed anywhere near this case, Carlan,” Brosterhouse said. “Go back to Bend. We’ll contact you.”

  “But I might be able to help!” Being shut out of the case was an even bigger fear than being suspected. He needed completion. Jamie had died before he could talk some sense into her, before she could remove the restraining order and those damning letters. He imagined her on her knees while he shoved the letters down her throat. Damn her! Why did she have to die and leave me to deal with this shit?

  From now on, people would always look at him sideways, even in Bend, where they knew him. He’d pass them in the hallway and there would be whispers, and laughter, and shame. Jamie had done this to him, and now he couldn’t change it. He was angry with her, rightfully so, but even more aggravating was that his anger had no outlet. Unless he turned it on the killer, the bastard who had taken her away before he could get to her and change her mind.

  Brosterhouse leaned toward him. He was huge, probably twice Carlan’s weight, though Carlan was just a little below average in size. “If you were a Portland cop, I’d have your badge,” he growled. “We don’t look the other way here, like they do in Bend. That small-town bullshit doesn’t wash here. Get out of town before I throw you in jail for even thinking about breaking the restraining order.”

  Carlan felt a sudden calm. He was a cop. He knew the law. He wouldn’t be bullied like the poor saps he arrested every day who didn’t understand their rights. He stared Brosterhouse in the eye.

  “I didn’t do it,” he said evenly. “Fuck you.”

  He walked away, feeling like he had regained a little of his pride. He knew other cops in Portland, cops who would be willing to help. Brosterhouse was wrong: the bullshit wasn’t confined to small towns, it was everywhere, in big cities and small, from sophisticated capitals to tiny, isolated hamlets. Bastard wanted to pretend the system of favors and the protection of your brothers didn’t apply in Portland? Who did he think he was talking to?

  #

  It turned out that Brosterhouse was almost right. Carlan called three of his “buddies” on the Portland police force and got turned down by all of them. The first two simply hung up; the third said, “I never much liked you, Carlan,” and then hung up.

  Time to pack up and go home? Use his contacts back in Bend?

  There was one more guy he could try, but he hesitated. It was his emergency escape valve, the guy he planned to turn to when all else failed. But he was out of options.

  “Hey, Funkadelic!”

  “What do you want, Carlan?” John Funk’s voice was so cold, Carlan almost backed off.

  “I need a favor.”

  “No.”

  “I still have it, Funker. I still have the evidence. The statute of limitations on manslaughter is the same as murder. Hell, they might just charge you with murder. After all, the only witness who could testify that it was a crime of passion is me.” He started singing: “Who’s got the Funk? Bop… bop… bop. I got the Funk. Who’s got the Funk? Bop… bop…”

  “Shut up,” his former partner said. “I’m thinking about turning myself in. I never did like the way that went down. I didn’t mean to kill him.”

  Carlan felt the fish slipping off the hook. “I know that! If it ever goes down, I could totally testify to that. The guy deserved it––raping a five-year-old girl. Hell, if you hadn’t killed him, I probably would have!”

  There was a long silence. A sigh. “What do you want, Carlan?”

  “I need the evidence on a current case. A girl found dead this morning in a motel room on the east side. Name of Jamie Lee Howe.”

  “Who’s the lead?”

  “Guy named Brosterhouse.”

  Another long silence. “Maybe I should just turn myself in now,” John Funk said. “Get it over with.”

  “No, no! Don’t do anything that will get you in trouble. Just… you know, help me out.”

  “All right. This one time. But don’t ever ask me to help you again, Carlan. I’ll fucking turn myself in.”

  Well, maybe he would, maybe he wouldn’t. But Carlan certainly intended to test his former partner’s resolve if he ever needed him again. “I promise,” he said.

  “Remember, you asshole, if I go down, you go down for withholding evidence.”

  “Sure, sure.” Not the way Carlan had it planned, but if it made Funk feel secure to think so, than so be it.

  “I’ll call you back,” Funk said, and hung up.

  Carlan stayed in Portland for another day, hanging out near the phone, watching Judge Judy and the other judges and Law and Order marathons all day. He had enough time to think, to wonder why he was trying so hard. Jamie was gone. There was nothing he could do about it.

  Truth was, he wasn’t as crushed by it as he thought he would be. Still, he hated that he hadn’t been able to change her mind. He’d been thinking about her for so long that something else needed to take her place. Revenge fit quite nicely.

  The Portland police weren’t moving very fast. Prostitute killings were notoriously difficult to solve, especially if it was stranger-on-stranger violence. If the killer used a condom and was careful, he could almost always get away with it unless they found him weaving down the road with a body in the back of the car.

  It was going to be up to Carlan, not the self-righteous Brosterhouse, to solve this case.

  “What do you care?” Funk asked later that evening. “From what I s
aw in the files, you were on the verge of killing her yourself.”

  “I loved her.”

  “You don’t love anyone. I remember how you treated women, Carlan.”

  “Yeah, but I never killed anyone, Funky. Remember that.”

  “Only because you’ve been lucky.” There was a rustle of papers over the line. “The DNA tests came back early. Kind of weird. The lab says not only can’t they identify the perpetrator, they’re not sure it’s even human DNA. The sample was probably contaminated.”

  The two puncture wounds in Jamie’s neck passed through Carlan’s mind, but he dismissed the wild speculation instantly. Humans killed humans. Always had, always would.

  Only one day and the case was already going cold. Carlan could sense that the Portland police were on the verge of giving up, putting it on the back burner. As a last resort, he asked for traffic citations in the surrounding area on the night of the murder. Even if it was the way they had caught the Son of Sam, most detectives considered it a Hail Mary pass, too time-consuming with too little reward to pursue in most cases.

  But Carlan took the time, spending most of the night and early morning going through the citations, and just as he was about to give up, he came across it: a warning for parking in a no-parking zone on the morning after the murder, given to a “well-dressed” man in a late-model Cadillac Escalade, sleeping off a binge in the backseat. Carlan rang up Funk and had him plug the license plate number into the database, and it came back as being registered under the name Jonathan Evers at a motel in Bend on the night after the murder.

  In Bend. That’s too much of a coincidence, Carlan thought. The Portland cops had probably written it off, if they had even bothered to check it out. But as a resident of Bend, Carlan knew how much someone had to go out of his or her way to reach the High Desert city. It really wasn’t on the road to anywhere important. It was mostly a destination.

  Somehow, the owner of this SUV, this Jonathan Evers, had begun the morning a block from the scene of a murder and had ended up in the hometown of the murder victim the following evening.