Kissing Corpses (9 page)

“Dad doesn't need to be involved.”

“But Cody does?”

“Stop worrying,” I insisted. My phone beeped. A call on the other line. I looked at the screen and realized that it was from the pre-payed phone. “Gottagoothercallbye.”

“Good morning,” a rough voice on the other line said. The caller had a think Boston accent. “Did you get my present?”

“Is this who I think it is?”

“Depends on what the vampire told you about me.”

“Liam Gilchrist?”

“That's what I was christened. And you are not as stupid as I thought you were, if you've contacted me already.”

“I need your help.”

“I saw. The vampire came to your house last night. He went in... you should have revoked your invitation if you were going to run away from him. He knows you packed a bag and he'll be looking for you. He's pissed.” I had a hard time pegging his accent over the phone. It sounded like he was somewhere busy.

“Can you help us?”

“Where are you now?”

I gave him Cody's address. Then I got up and knocked on Geneva's door. “Gilchrist called,” I told her. “Get dressed.”

He arrived thirty minutes later with coffee and a bag from Daylight Donuts. He was middle-aged with a long nose, short chin, and hazel eyes. His sandy hair was going grey and he had a few small scars on his face. He dressed in a brown leather coat and jeans. I could see a hint of a plaid collar under his coat. He wasn't what I had pictured at all. I guess I was expecting a wide-brimmed hat or a priest's collar.

Cody was awake by the time the hunter arrived, and he sat in his big arm chair with a glass of orange juice, staring as Liam Gilchrist walked in the door.

“You're a friend of Miss Harker?” Gilchrist asked Cody, dropping his R's.

Cody looked at me and then back at Gilchrist. “Ex-boyfriend.”

“Does Hale know about him?” he asked me.

“No. Not a word.”

“Good. Hopefully it'll be a while before he figures out where you are.” He sat down on the sofa and opened his paper bag. He pulled out a pastry with sausage in it and took a large bite. My stomach grumbled. I briefly considered sending Geneva out for breakfast.

“Want one?” he asked Cody, holding out the bag.

“Yeah, thanks man.”

“I'm judging from your glare that you were sort of dragged into this,” Gilchrist said.

Cody nodded and unwrapped the second pastry. He picked some melted cheese off the bottom and ate it first. “I hadn't seen Kendall for months.” Cody raised the pastry to his lips and then lowered it again. “You don't look like a therapist,” Cody said.

Gilchrist laughed. “Is that what she told you? I'm his therapist?”

“Yes?”

“What, exactly, did you tell him about Hale?”

“That he thinks he's a vampire,” I answered.

Gilchrist shook his head. “You might not have let her into your house if she had been perfectly honest with you. Rawdy boy doesn't think he's a vampire. He is one.”

Cody put the pastry down. “Get the fuck out of my house.”

Gilchrist continued, “We're not talking about vampires as in whiny teenagers who need to discover Goth clubs.” He set his pastry down and pulled back his sleeve. There was a scar across his right forearm that looked like two puncture wounds that had been dragged before pulling out near his wrist. “I mean demons with fangs who just won't die.”

Cody sat up. “Is that a bite?”

“Doesn't look like a dog bite, does it? Ten years ago, while you were trying to decide what to wear on your first day of high school, Rawdon Hale took a bite out of me. Hurt like a son of a bitch.”

“You called him a demon,” I said. “Do you mean it?”

Gilchrist stood up and took off his coat. He folded it over the arm of the couch and sat back down. “By now you're aware that your new beau is a walking corpse,” he said. “No pulse, no breath. Blinking is just a game of pretend for him.”

I nodded.

“What did he tell you about vampires?”

“He told me about his maker, and about his maker's maker who raised him. He told me about his powers.”

“Did he tell you about his weaknesses?”

I shook my head. All I knew was that he couldn't go out in sunlight. I didn't even know exactly what would happen if he did. Would he catch fire?

“Now wait a minute,” Cody said. “You don't actually expect me to believe that he's a real vampire.”

“I starts with Lilitu in Babylon, the first demon to infect a human. She sired Lamashtu and Gallu. These first demons didn't resemble much about the vampires we know except for the fact that they drank blood. They were slain long ago. More followed, Lamia, Empusa and Izcacus sired their own lines. Each demon sired a lineage of vampires with unique powers and weaknesses as different as the demons themselves. Guire Grando is the first of the particular line that Mr. Hale comes from. The demon who sired him is unknown.”

“You mean like hellfire and damnation demons?” I asked for clarification.

He barreled on without acknowledging my question. “Demonic possession is something you hear about in scary movies and haunting tales. Possession of the living is an infrequent but troublesome issue within spiritual warfare. Vampirism should be seen as possession of the dead. As you know by now, Rawdon Hale is dead.”

Geneva came out of the guest room at this point. “What did I miss? Ooh, hello!”

“Who is this?” Gilchrist asked.

“My roommate.”

Geneva offered her hand to shake. Gilchrist took it, shook it and turned back to his pastry and his lecture on vampire origins.

“Kendall thinks Rawdon is a real vampire,” Cody said.

“What?”

“Right, so, vampires are possessed corpses. Got that? Demons need permission to enter a human being, just like vampires need permission to enter your home. So good job on inviting it in.”

“Technically I invited him in first, I think,” Geneva said.

Gilchrist snorted. “Three things are needed for a vampiric transformation.” He held up a finger. “One, exsanguination. Two, blood. Three,” he held up three fingers by now. “Covenant. You need to be completely drained to the point of death before drinking the blood of a vampire-- the sire-- and you have to want to become a vampire. It only takes the tiniest hint of desire to make the transformation, but you can't be made a vampire if your heart is totally against it. The transformation won't complete, and you'll kick the bucket.”

He stared right at me with that last bit. I stood up from my perch on the opposite end of the couch and started pacing. “Okay. So I got that he's evil and crazy when I found out he killed Jeremy. And I know he's going to kill me if I let him. What do I do to stop him?”

“You found me. That's a great first step.”

“So you dated this guy?” Cody asked, breaking his long silence. “For a week? I'm sorry, but if you really think he's a vampire and this is not just some practical joke, how would you not know he was a corpse for a week?”

“Well he always wore gloves, and he was a gentleman,” I said. “And I may have known since Sunday.”

“You should have run the hell away,” Cody said.

“He hypnotized me,” I argued. I knew that my voice was sounding desperate.

“Hypnotism can't make you sleep with a corpse if you're not at least open to it.” Gilchrist said.

“What?” Geneva shouted.

“You did sleep with him, didn't you?”

I looked down at my feet.

“And you knew he was a vampire?”

“I found out on Sunday,” I replied, quietly.

“So you knowingly fucked a corpse, and now he thinks you two will be together forever.”

I looked up at Gilchrist, angry. Maybe I was furious with him. Probably I was just furious with myself. “I didn't know he was evil, alright? He drinks bank blood. I thought he was a pacifist.”

“He won't be drinking bank blood anymore.” Gilchrist bundled up the papers and bag from Daylight Donuts and stood up. “Where's the trash?”

Cody pointed. “In the closet.”

Gilchrist continued to lecture as he walked around the kitchen. “You think you're his first post-mortem romance? Rawdon Hale's psychosis functions on a ten year cycle. He decides to straighten out his life, to foster his humanity. He sets up a legitimate business selling antiques. He finds a new home far away from his previous one. He feeds on animals and willing prostitutes until he can find a source of bank blood and then he thinks he's almost human. Then he meets a girl. The last one was Laura Ruiz, may she rest in peace,” he crossed himself automatically, not pausing one second in his speech to do so, “He falls in love. He tries to turn her. Usually she's repulsed-- only one actually went for it, that's another story-- and she tries to run. He kills her. He spirals into monstrosity, leaving a trail of corpses and anemic women with gaps in their memories. He carries on this way for a few years before deciding he needs to find his humanity. Then he starts all over again. You just figured out his secret sooner than most. That's the problem with the promiscuous times we live in. Most girls enjoy months of gentile courting before they figure it out. You hopped right into bed with him.”

Silent tears streamed down my face. I was going to be one in a long line of girls murdered by Rawdon Hale. I was going to die all for a few days of excitement at the idea that somebody wanted me.

“I'm so sorry,” I said to Geneva.

She sat next to me and hugged me. She didn't speak. I couldn't tell if she even believed me.

“So who are you then?” Cody asked. “Vampire Hunter D?”

“Dhampirs are a myth. I am a slayer. Liam Gilchrist. Your name?”

“Cody Hunt.”

“Hunt,” Gilchrist repeated with a smirk. “Funny.”

“How are we going to stop him?” Geneva asked. “I mean, if he thinks he's--”

“He
is
a vampire. To start,” Gilchrist said, picking up his coat. “Miss Harker is going to get dressed and bring me to his lair.”

Liam Gilchrist and I stood on Rawdon's lawn, looking up at the house. The neighborhood was empty. It was a new development that stopped construction because of the housing market collapse. Few houses had sold and the inhabitants of those homes were off at Sunday services.

“Come on,” he said, lifting his black leather bag and slinging it over his shoulder. “We have work to do.

“The back of the house is blacked-out,” I said. “I think he sleeps in the basement.”

“You know what happens to a vampire in the sunlight?”

“They catch fire?”

He laughed.

“They don't actually sparkle, do they?”

“Fuck no.”

“Then what?”

“They're dead.” He jiggled the front doorknob. It was locked. He slipped a set of picks out of the front pouch of his bag and slid one into the lock. “They're corpses. They can't animate in the sunlight, the light of our Lord.”

“For someone so religious, shouldn't you be at church?”

“The Lord will forgive me missing services if I'm actively slaying a demon.” The lock clicked. He turned the knob. “Ha. Left the deadbolt unlocked.”

I looked around the neighborhood once before following him inside. There was no movement on the street.

“So what are we doing, going downstairs to stake him?”

“If you want to risk going into a blacked-out basement with an angry vampire, be my guest.” He set his bag down on the coffee table and pulled out a red gas can. He slipped a pair of blue rubber gloves on before extracting three empty glass beer bottles and an old rag.

“Molotov cocktail?” I stared, wide-eyed at Gilchrist. “Are you insane?”

“Maybe a little,” he said.

I crossed my arms across my chest and went to peek through the front blinds. Someone was coming home with a van-load of kids. “We have neighbors,” I said.

“Approaching the house?”