Love Is The Beginning (Valerie Dearborn) (4 page)

Jack looked to the door repeatedly, fantasizing that his
parents would walk in. Grief smothering him, he got up and went to their
bedroom. The bed was covered with pillows and the quilt his grandmother had
made. He lay down and thought of them, waiting for sleep to claim him.

When he awoke, it was the middle of the night. He went to
the living room where one of his mother's friends was asleep on the couch. Out
of morbid curiosity, he left the apartment and went upstairs. All the lights
were on, and he could hear someone in one of the rooms opening drawers.  He
walked towards the sound, uncaring about the danger. What did it matter if one
of them was back?  He deserved to be dead after what he’d done to his parents.

Nate’s daughter, the girl with the gun and sad eyes, was
back, staring into a wardrobe laden with clothes.

“It's you,” he said. Surprisingly, more words came to him,
so he kept talking, his grief making his tongue feel thick in his mouth. “How
is your father?”

The girl turned and looked at him over her shoulder. Her
gaze wandering over him in a rather distant way, like he was a statue instead
of a person. “He's all right. He's going to live.” She looked down, the words
quiet, as though she felt so sad that her father was alive when his were gone
that she couldn't meet his gaze. She looked back at him earnestly.

“I’m Val. I want to tell you...I'm really sorry about your
parents. My mom was killed by a vampire too. When I was five.”

Maybe it was because he didn't know her, so it didn't matter
what he said, but he found himself confessing, “It's my fault. Your father told
me to stay away, and I sent them upstairs.”

She'd been holding a red sequined cocktail dress in her
hands, but she threw it aside and strode over to him, her face angry. “No, it's
not your fault. You can't do that to yourself. It was
Marion
who killed
them.”

She was an idiot.

“You don't understand,” he said. “I made a stupid decision.
If I had done
nothing
, they'd still be alive.”

“How old are you?” Her dark brown eyes were looking him
over, trying to guess.

“Thirteen.”

She sighed heavily, her shoulders slumping in resignation.
“Well, if I had been smarter maybe my mother would be alive too. I froze like a
moron, just waiting to be next. Like the worst freebie line ever.” She lifted
her chin and turned away, walking back to the closet. She started rummaging
through pockets.

“You were five! You couldn't do anything to protect her at
five!” His voice was loud and indignant.

Val turned back and looked at him, her eyes slitted like a
cat. Scheming eyes, he thought. “Why couldn't I have protected her?”

“You were not strong enough or old enough, experienced
enough—”

“Oh puh-lease.” She gestured at him, as though at a loss for
words. “You're Italian for crying out loud! What the heck were
you
gonna
do?”

“What does
that
have to do with anything?”

She spoke slowly, carefully, so that he would understand.
“You had a happy family. Muy bueno, you know? Bad things didn't happen to you.
What were you going to do, wander around with a stake just in case monsters
were real?”

He was done with this conversation. “Why are you here?”

She turned away from him, her head disappearing into the
closet to get a better look. Her hair was a rich dark brown, heavy and fairly
straight. She wore it in a ponytail, and she looked like she'd been crying—her
face a bit red and splotchy. But even though she was upset, there was a
positivity to her that was almost tangible. As if things couldn't get her down
for long. He wasn't sure this small interaction was enough to justify his
opinion of her, but there was something about her that made him feel...better.
Like the grief was still on him and
in
him, but not crushing him.

“How old are you?”

She looked at him with a wincing smile. “Ten.”

“Ten! You seem older.”

“Death will do that to you. You look a hundred.”

That made him angry. He thought about going back downstairs,
but the only thing worse than being insulted right now, would be going back to
his empty apartment.

“How did your father survive?”

The girl left the closet and went into the little bathroom
that was attached, her voice raised to carry the distance. “I don't know. It's
a stupid thing to do, trying to hunt vampires. If we didn’t have the blood,
he'd be dead I think.” Her voice wobbled a little.

“You can carry blood around?”

“Not for long! But long enough to come here and investigate.
If you store it right. My dad didn't think anything would happen, but you
either pack for bear or you’re dead. More hunters were supposed to be coming
into town today, and they were going to go after them tomorrow. It's not safe
to go after vampires without help.”

Anger made him breathless. “He knew vampires were staying in
the hotel? Why didn't he warn us?”

She raised her hands in mock surrender, “Hey, I just work
here—unhappily, I might add— and I don't know why he did or didn't do what he
did....Was that a sentence? Okay, I'm done here. Moving on.” She pushed past
him, leaving him in angry silence.

Jack trailed after her. “What are you doing here? Why aren’t
you with your father?”

She snorted like he’d made a joke. “He sent me here to
search through stuff, see if I could find anything useful for a change. All the
heavy hitters were here. Anyway, vampires aren’t powerful enough to transport
anything else besides themselves and what is on them, like, you know, clothes.
Maybe a few papers too. If they are
really
powerful, maybe a purse or
something.” She threw him a smile as if that were a joke. Maybe it was,
Americans were always trying to make jokes.

Jack thought about how Marion had seemed willing to take him
with her. “Could they carry a person?” he asked as they searched the next room.

She shook her head. “Not that I know of, but there is a lot
we don't know.”

He was confused. “But there are movies and books and stuff.”

“That's Hollywood and make-believe. They'd only know one if
it bit them on the ass. Or maybe not, it's hard to see your own ass.” She
smirked at her own joke, then was instantly serious again. “It'd be good to
know where they’ll go next.”

“So you can hunt them?” Jack stooped down to look under the
bed.

“I already looked there. You can check under the mattress
though and behind the pictures maybe. My dad hunts them.”

“And you too?” Even after what he'd seen, he found this
surprising.

She sighed. “No, I do not, and I don't
want
to. I'm
just here because school is out, and camp doesn't start for two weeks. This is
like, you know, bonding time,” she said it in a surly tone.

“Where do you go to school?” he asked.

She whistled in disbelief. “After all the crap I just told
you, your question is 'Where do I go to school?' Hello, shell-shock! In
America. California. Maybe you've heard of it. Big place. Hot. Lots of roads.”
She sighed again. “Okay, there’s nothing here.”

“You're leaving?” His voice held a thread of panic. Even if
she was a pain in the ass, he didn't want to be alone.

“No, I still have a few more rooms.” She walked past him and
down the hall into Ella's room—the room that his papa had died in. He heard the
buzzing again in his ears, and she put a hand on his arm, looking at him
worriedly. “Oh yeah. You know what? You shouldn't come with me. You should stay
here. Maybe even go back downstairs. I always save the ones with blood and
stuff for last. It just lingers too long. I want to be out as soon as possible
after going into the rooms with… I'm really sorry about your mom and dad,” she
said again.

Ella was gone, his dad was gone. He knew that, but he still
felt a terrible fear that he might see them again if he went in there. The
sheets on the bed were a mess, rumpled from taking Ella away. There was no
blood, which was a shock. And then he saw a tiny drop on the pillow. His gaze
fixated there. The girl opened the drawers, taking out all the clothes and
throwing them on the bed. Lots of dresses, tights, and pretty sweaters. “This
is a great wardrobe. Marion always buys them cute clothes. She's like Mother
Dearest but evil with a capital ‘E’. I think the
real
Mother Dearest was
more of a lowercase kind of lady.”

How could she be so flip? “This was a girl's life. That...
woman killed her. Fed from her for who knows how long. What about her family?”

“Oddly, Marion always takes orphans. Maybe because they’re not
as traceable, I don't know. I bet those kids think they’ve hit the jackpot. At
least at first. She gives them a better life, buys them pretty things, and pays
attention to them. She feeds them, and they travel the world with her. But they
also have a time limit. She likes them young. This one was what, twelve or
something? Once they’re teenagers, it's over, if you know what I mean. They
just turn up dead. I guess teenagers really
are
a pain in the ass.”

“Stop!” Jack planted himself in front of her, desperately
wanting her to admit that things were awful, not the routine exercise she
seemed to think this was. “Her name was Ella. This isn’t a joke.”

She moved away from him, her eyes spitting fire. “No shit,
Sherlock. Don’t you watch TV? You
have
to make jokes.  You Italians.” She
rolled her eyes. “You probably don't even have police shows. Not enough
nudity.” The whole time she'd been speaking she'd gone through the room,
touching everything in an impersonal manner. She took nothing with her when she
walked out the door and down the hall. He followed her.

“Crap, I forgot this one,” she said and ducked into the room
across the hall.

Jack remembered taking food to this room, it was the one
with the tall, handsome man with blond hair. She opened drawers and pulled out
more clothing.

“Another female. Wow, look at the size of these diamonds!”
She'd pulled out a jewelry box from the top drawer then walked to the mirror,
moving her hair back from her ears so she could hold them up to herself. “These
are some nice things. Must have been Lucas or Dmitri who was here.”

“What? Who’s that?”

“Well, Lucas is like the head-honcho, and Dmitri is a total
womanizer. All these designer clothes and shoes—this is like, a fortune in
clothes. Sometimes I'd kill to take all this stuff to a consignment store. The
clothes I mean, obviously we take the expensive jewelry.”

Jack stared at her dumbly. He didn't know. Was it obvious to
take stuff from a dead person's room?

She kept talking. “Lucas keeps them for a while, and then
that's it. Usually, he lets them go, but they never know anything. Their minds
are always wiped clean.  He's a real catch,” she said sarcastically. 

“Dmitri's just this Greek guy. He's a vampire and is rich
and has his women, but at least he's killable. It’s just a matter of time,” she
said it wearily. This girl was ten? She acted more like she was thirty.

“How long have you been doing this?” Jack asked.

She stood up from looking under the bed. Her shoulders went
back, and she picked up the jewelry box again. “Not long. Usually I'm in school,
but my dad talks about his work, or other hunters come over to the house, and I
hear it. Sometimes we get stuff in the mail. Pictures, descriptions, that kind
of thing.” She stopped, and he knew she was getting ready to leave. 

“Okay, well that's it. I'm going to the hospital now. I'm
sure my dad will come back before we go. He'll want to talk to you, ask you
questions, write your story down probably.” She came closer to him. “I'm
really,
really
sorry about your parents.” She put her arms around him
and hugged him like he was porcelain.

Jack didn't pull away from her or encourage her, just let
her hug him. What did it matter, anyway?

The next week passed in a blur. He didn't have much family,
so his uncle, a confirmed bachelor, came to stay with him at the closed hotel.
Uncle Vito slept on the couch. Neither of them went into his parent’s room.
Jack didn't want to leave the hotel, but staying was awful too. His childhood
home had changed. It was no longer a place of safety and familiarity, but a
prison that reminded him of the crime he'd committed against his parents.

How could he stay here? Be in this little town and walk by
the hotel every day? He wanted to leave. He wanted revenge. And he didn't want
to be afraid. He often thought of that girl and how unafraid she'd been. What
had made her like that? How could he become like her? Was it something her
father taught her?

And then, on the eleventh day, he heard the door close in
the lobby. He peeked out, frightened of who it might be. Vampires would kill
him. Or people he knew would try to console him. Both were bad.

Nate was looking around the lobby. He seemed fine. “Jack. I
hear you met my daughter, Valerie.”

Jack studied Nate, inspected him like he might still see
blood pouring out of his body if he looked hard enough. He'd wondered if the
man would come back. If it would be painful to see him again. But somehow it
was better. This man had
tried
. He'd almost lost his life trying to help
Jack's parents. 

“I wanted to tell you that I am sorry. Sorry that I failed
you, Jack.” Nate’s voice was gruff, his flat American accent easy to
understand. “The plan was to wait. I had some back up, and they were supposed
to arrive and help, but things got out of hand, and the confrontation was
sooner than it should have been. No one stood a chance. You're lucky you
survived. That's what your parents would have wanted. You know that, right
Jack? That all a parent wants for their child is for them to go on and live a
useful and happy life?  It seems impossible now, but when you start enjoying
things again, living again, embrace that. Because that's what they would want
for you. You can't feel guilty about living.”