The Purity of Blood: Volume I (69 page)

“We spotted him
about five miles east of here.
 
I think
he was circling the property, trying to pick up our scents to get an idea of
our numbers,” Thomas said, his voice issuing from the living room as I came
down the back stairs.
 
It looked like all
six of them were all in the living room now.
 

Looking to avoid
joining their conversation, I skirted around the back of the house and into the
kitchen where I could overhear them if I chose to.
 
Although I heard their voices, I wasn’t
purposefully listening to them.
 
I caught
enough to know that, despite their best efforts, I’d probably be dead by
morning.
 

Feeling like I
should really care more about my predicament, I opened up the cabinet with my
food supplies and pulled out a box of granola bars.
 
Hopping up on the counter, I started to eat
one, washing it down with one of my last bottles of water.
 
Randall’s stuff was all over the kitchen
table with a few additional things scattered on the floor.
 
One of the items on the floor looked like a
cooler which I was pretty sure had blood in it.
 
Their granola bars
I thought
to myself with a quirky smile as I chewed on mine.
 

There was a
smaller box off to the side that also looked like some sort of cooler, but it
had tight latches on its sides.
 
It
peaked my curiosity so I quietly hopped down and walked over to give it a
closer inspection.
 
Being extra quiet, I
bent down and pried up the latches on either side.
 
Inside its thick lid and sides were vials of
blood with my name written on them.
 
Randall had drawn my blood a few times since he’d arrived and I guess
this was where he was storing his little stockpile of me.
 

My curiosity now
satisfied, I closed the container and hopped back up on the counter to continue
my granola bar dinner.
 
As I was
finishing the second bar Daniel came in and leaned back against the counter
beside me.

“It won’t be
long now,” he said as if to comfort me.
 
“soon it will all be over and then we can go home.”
 
He reached over and laid a hand on my knee as
he smiled up at me.

I looked back
into the living room.
 
In the dimly lit
room a fire burned in the hearth giving the room it’s only light.
 
In the amber glow it cast, only Randall and
Lois remained now.

“Where did the
others go?”

“They’re
circling the house.”

My eyes were
drawn back to the living room as Lois sat down in the chair.
 
Randall stood leaning against the fireplace,
watching the wood slowly burn as he churned something over in his mind.
 
I suppose if I concentrated hard enough, I
could have heard what it was if I’d really wanted to.
 
But I didn’t.

“It must be
weird for them – being back here,” I commented, more to myself than to Daniel.

“I’m sure,” he
said, following the direction of my gaze.

Randall walked
over and sat down on the floor next to the chair.
 
He watched the fire for a few moments then
laid his head down on Lois’ knee and I watched as she gently reached over and
began to stroke his hair with her fingers.
 
His eyes closed at her touch as he savored the sensation of it.
 
Suddenly I felt my face flush.
 
I shouldn’t be watching such an intimate
moment between them.

Still watching
them, I felt Daniels hand as he gently caressed my knee.
 
His touch yanked my gaze back to him only to
see his eyes fixed on Randall and Lois as well.
 
Was he thinking what I was thinking?
 
Would that be us someday?

As I leaned down
and placed my head on his shoulder, the house fell quiet for a while except for
the sound of the crackling fire and the steady rhythm of my heart.

“He talks
differently when he’s with her,” I murmured absentmindedly.

“I’m sorry?”

I looked up to
meet Daniel’s gaze.

“Randall.
 
He talks differently.
 
It’s odd really, like a slightly different
accent.
 
Almost sounds more English.
 
It’s very subtle.”

He looked at
them over his shoulder for a moment before turning back to me.

“You know, I
think you’re right.
 
I can’t believe I
never noticed that before.”

“Maybe it’s
their human voices.”

“Human voices?”

“Yeah, how they
used to talk to each other back in the 1700’s when they were still human.”

He shrugged his
shoulders.
 

“I suppose
that’s possible.
 
Regional accents
change.
 
Maybe that’s the original Rhode
Island accent … I just can’t believe I never noticed that before.”
 
He turned back and looked at them again
almost as if seeing them for the first time.

“Do you talk
differently now than you did as a human?”

“No. – Yes.
 
Maybe.
 
I’m not really sure.
 
I never
really thought about it.
 
I guess I
do.
 
I mean, expressions change.
 
I think you mirror what you hear around you
so
its
only natural for your way of speaking to
evolve over time.
 
Sometimes I think I
slip into the old ways.
 
I think when I
spend time thinking about my parents and siblings and the happy times we spent
together … maybe I slip back into how we talked to each other.
 
For a while anyway.”

He got a far of
look in his eye as he remembered the family he’d lost so long ago.
 

Would that be me someday?
 

Would I get that far off look in my eye a
hundred years from now remembering Mom, Dad and Roger?

“Did you ever
wonder why if Randall was a pure as a human, the vampire that attacked him left
him alive?”

My question
seemed to rouse Daniel from his own deep thoughts.

“Yes, I
have.
 
But I don’t have a good answer for
you.
 
It seems unlikely that it was on
purpose.”

“How so?”

“Vampires want
to get every last drop of pure blood out of a victim.
 
He’d have had to have left Randall with a
least enough blood to survive long enough for the transformation to begin.
 
I can only imagine that he was interrupted
and felt the need to flee for fear of discovery.”

“But Randall
said he died in the woods.
 
Doesn’t seem
like anyone would have come across them there.”

“No, it
doesn’t.
 
Like I said, we’ll never know
for sure.
 
That vampire probably died
well before I was born.
 
Maybe it was on
purpose, his creating Randall I mean.”

“
Humm
,” I mused to myself as I laid
my head back on his shoulder.
 
Would I
ever know the answer to that question?

In the morning I awoke curled up
in my sleeping bag in the upstairs bedroom.
 
Before I opened my eyes, I could smell the remains of the fire Daniel
had started in the small fireplace the night before.
 
I looked around the room for him only to find
I was alone.
 
He had walked me up the
stairs last night and wordlessly watched as I got in the sleeping bag and
quickly fell asleep.
 
Somehow I’d
expected he’d still be here when I opened my eyes.
 
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed
I he was gone.
 

Getting up, I
changed clothes, all the while desperately wishing for the running water of a
steaming hot shower.
 
I hated not feeling
a hundred percent clean.
 
You’d have
thought I’d at least have been able to control that if nothing else.

As I descended
the stairs I heard laughter coming from the kitchen.
 
Lois and Daniel were the only ones there when
I walked in, and without a word I passed them and shuffled over to the cabinet where
I pulled out a box of my granola bars.
 
As I did, Daniel leaned over and gave me a kiss on the forehead.

“Good morning,
sleepy head,” he said playfully.

“What time is
it?” I asked, none too enthused at this God forsaken hour of the morning.

“A little after
five, I think.”

I made a face
and bit into the bar.

“Have a seat,”
Daniel said.
 
“I found a few chairs in
the back of the barn.”
 

I looked over to
see five mismatched old wooden chairs around the table.
 
Still half asleep, I walked over with a
bottle of water and sat down while they went back to their conversation.
 
They were too cheerful for five in the
morning, but I guess if you didn’t sleep, it didn’t make much difference what
time of day it was.
   

Humm
… that must be strange.

When I finished
eating, I went over to the water pump and filled up my canteen before heading
towards the back door.

“Where do you
think you’re going?” Daniel asked sounding concerned and sarcastic at the same
time.

“To brush my
teeth, if you must know,” I answered, a little irritated at his tone.
 
But really I was just cranky this early in
the morning.

I sat down with my
feet dangling off the porch and slowly brushed my teeth.
 
In the predawn light I saw Randall out back
by the big barn carrying things around like he was cleaning up.
 
I guess the state of his former homestead was
getting on his nerves too much for him to be able to stand it any longer.
 
I heard a burst of laughter issuing from the
kitchen behind me and wondered what had happened to make Lois stay away for so
long.
 
Where had she been all this time?

I felt like I
was starting to see through a crack in the door of their lives, and every day
the door opened just a little bit wider.
 
I’d seen so much already.
 
What
more would I see in the coming days, weeks or however much longer I had them in
my life?
 

Getting up, I
went back inside and upstairs to get my jacket.
 
A chill hung in the air even inside the house now that the fires from
last night had gone out.
 
As I came back
down pulling it tightly around my shoulders, Randall came flying in the
backdoor.

“Lily just
called.
 
They spotted Demetrius.
 
He’s about two miles west of here.
 
It looks like he’s following the trail we
took the other day back from Chimney Orchard.
 
They’re circling around to try to intercept him with Lucy.”

I saw Daniel’s
head turn frantically searching for me, causing me to quickly walk into the
kitchen and over to his side where I felt safest.
 
Slipping my arm around his waist, he pulled
me close as if telling me without words that he’d never leave my side again.

“I think we
should join them, Randall,” Lois said with an urgency in her voice.
 
“We don’t know if he’s fed again.”

“Very well.
 
Daniel you stay here with Sara.
 
Don’t leave the house.”

Without a word,
Randall and Lois went out the back door together and a moment later, I saw two
blurs pass by the window heading down toward the driveway.

Daniel put both
his arms around me now and held me close.
 
After a few moments, his grip grew so strong it became hard for me to
draw breath, causing me to wonder if death itself could pry me loose of his
arms.

“When he comes,
he’s going to try to separate us.
 
He’ll
need time to feed on you and he knows he won’t be able to if I’m with you.
 
He’ll be vulnerable when he does and he knows
I’ll attack then.
 
So he’ll try to either
kill me first and then attack you or try to separate us and kill you while I’m
not there.”

I tried to say
something, but couldn’t find the air in my lungs.
 
He looked down and suddenly realizing what he
was doing, eased his grip.
 

Fifteen minutes
passed as we stood in the kitchen holding each other in silence.
 
I thought of many things there in his
arms.
 
I thought about how much and how
deeply I loved him.
 
I wondered what kind
of a future we could possibly have together.
 
Did we even have one at all?
 
Would these be our last minutes together?
 
Would Ben ever know what really happened to
me if I was to die today?
 
Then I felt
his fingers in my hair as he began to stroke it gently.
 

“Did I ever tell
you how much I love the color of your hair?” he asked softly.

I shook my head
no.

“Well, I should
have.
 
I remember that first day when I
saw you in the hallway outside my office.
 
The way the light from the window danced across your face and up into
your hair.
 
It looked like fire.
 
Then you spun your head as you walked away
and the fire roared to life as it retreated from my view.
 
I’ll never forget it as long as I live.”