Secret Vampire (19 page)

And in the process of greeting so many mourners,
something strange happened. Phil got drawn in. The
reality of Poppy's death was so real that all the vam
pire stuff began to seem like a dream. Bit by bit, he
started to believe the story he was acting out.

After all, everybody else was so sure. Poppy had
gotten cancer, and now she was dead. Vampires were just superstition.

James didn't come to the viewing.
-

Poppy was dreaming.

She was walking by the ocean with James. It was
warm and she could smell salt and her feet were wet
and sandy. She was wearing a new bathing suit, the
kind that changes color when it gets wet. She hoped James would notice the suit, but he didn't say any
thing about it.

Then she realized he was wearing a mask. That was strange, because he was going to get a
very weird
tan with most of his face covered up.

"Shouldn't you take that off?" she said, thinking
he might need help.

"I wear it for my health," James said-only it
wasn't James's voice.

Poppy was shocked. She reached out and pulled
the mask away.

It wasn't James. It was a boy with ash blond hair,
even lighter than Phil's. Why hadn't she noticed his
hair earlier? His eyes were green-and then they
were blue.

"Who are you?" Poppy demanded. She was afraid.

"That would be telling." He smiled. His eyes were
violet. Then he lifted his hand, and she saw that he
was holding a poppy. At least, it was shaped like a
poppy, but it was black. He caressed her
cheek with
the flower.

"Just remember," he
said, still smiling whimsically.
"Bad magic happens."

"What?"

"Bad magic happens," he said and turned and
walked away. She found herself holding the poppy.
He didn't '
leave any footprints in the sand.

Poppy was alone and the ocean was roaring. Clouds were gathering overhead. She wanted to
wake up now, but she couldn't, and she was alone
and scared. She dropped the flower as anguish surged
through her.

"James!"

Phil sat up in bed, heart pounding.

God, what had that been? Something like a
shout in Poppy's voice.

I'm hallucinating.

Which wasn't surprising. It was Monday, the day
of Poppy's funeral. In-Phil glanced at the clock
about four hours he had to be at the church. No
wonder he was dreaming about her.

But she had sounded so scared....

Phil put the thought out of his mind. It wasn't
even hard. He'd convinced himself that Poppy was
dead, and dead people didn't shout.

At the funeral, though, Phil got a shock. His father
was there. He was even wearing something resem
bling a suit, although the jacket didn't match the
trousers and his tie was askew.

"I came as soon as I heard...."

"Well, where
were
you?" Phil's mother said, the
fine lines of strain showing around her eyes, the way
they always did when she had to deal with Phil's father.

"Backpacking in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Next
time, I swear, I'll leave an address. I'll check my mes
sages....
He began to cry. Phil's mom didn't say
anything else. She just reached for him, and Phil's
heart twisted at the way they clung to each other.

He knew his dad was irresponsible and hopelessly
behind in child support and flaky and a failure. But
nobody had ever loved Poppy more. Right then, Phil
couldn't disapprove of him, not even with Cliff stand
ing there for comparison.

The shock came when his dad turned to Phil before
the service. "You know, she came to me last night,"

he said in a low voice. "Her spirit, I mean. She vis
ited me."

Phil looked at him. This was the kind of weird statement that had brought on the divorce. His father
had always talked about peculiar dreams and seeing
things that weren't there. Not to mention collecting articles about astrology, numerology, and UFOs.

"I didn't see her, but I heard her calling. I just wish
she hadn't sounded so frightened. Don't tell your
mother, but I got the feeling she's not at rest." He
put his hands over his face.

Phil felt every hair on the back of his neck stand
up.

But the spooky feeling was drowned almost immediately in the sheer grief of the funeral. In hearing
things like "Poppy will live on forever in our hearts
and memories." A silver hearse led the way to Forest
Park cemetery, and everyone stood in the June sun
shine as the minister said some last words over
Poppy's casket. By the time Phil had to put a rose on
the casket, he was shaking.

It was a terrible time. Two of Poppy's girlfriends
collapsed in near-hysterical sobs. Phillip's mother
doubled over and had to be led away from the casket.
There was no time to think-then or at the potluck
at Phil's house afterward.

But it was at the house that Phil's two worlds col
lided. In the middle of all the milling confusion, he
saw James.

He didn't know what to do. James didn't fit into
what was going on here. Phil had half a mind to
go over and tell him to get out, that the sick joke
was over.

Before he could do anything, James walked up and said under his breath, "Be ready at eleven o'clock tonight."

Phil was jolted. "For what?"

"Just be ready, okay? And have some of Poppy's
clothes with you. Whatever won't be missed." Phil didn't say anything, and James gave him an exasperated sideways look.

"We have to get her out,
stupid. Or did you want
to leave her there?"

Crash. That was the sound of worlds colliding. For a moment Phil was spinning in space with his feet
on neither one.

Then with the normal world in shards around him, he leaned against a wall and whispered, "I can't. I
can't do it. You're crazy."

"You're the one who's crazy. You're acting like it
never happened. And you have to help, because I
can't do it alone. She's going to be disoriented at first, like a sleepwalker. She'll
need you."

That galvanized Phil. He jerked to stand up straight
and whispered, "Did you hear her last night?"

James looked away. "She wasn't awake. She was just dreaming."

"How could we hear her from so far away? Even
my dad
heard it. Listen." He grabbed James by the
lapel of his jacket. "Are you sure she's okay?"

"A minute ago you were convinced she was dead and gone. Now you want guarantees that she's fine.

Well, I can't give you any." He stared Phil down with eyes as cold as gray ice. "I've never done this before, all right? I'm just going by the book. And there are

always things that can go wrong.
But,
"
he said tersely
when Phil opened his mouth, "the one thing
I do
know is that if we leave her where she is, she's going
to have a very unpleasant awakening. Get it?"

Phil's hand unclenched slowly and he let go of the
jacket. "Yeah. I'm sorry. I just can't believe any of
this." He looked up to see that James's expression
had softened slightly. "But if she was yelling last
night, then she was alive then, right?"

"And strong," James said. "I've never known a stronger telepath. She's really going to be something."

Phil tried not to picture what. Of course, James
was a vampire, and he looked perfectly normal
most of the time. But Phil's mind kept throwing out
pictures of Poppy as a Hollywood monster. Red eyes,
chalky skin, and dripping teeth.

If she came out like that, he'd try to love her. But
part of him might want to get a stake.

Forest Park cemetery was completely
.
different at
night. The darkness seemed very thick. There was a sign on the iron gate that said, "No visitors after sun
set," but the gate itself was open.

I don't want to be here, Phil thought.

James drove down the single lane road that curved
around the cemetery and parked underneath a huge
and ancient gingko tree.

"What if somebody sees us? Don't they have a
guard or something?"

"They have a night watchman. He's asleep. I took
care of it before I picked you up." James got out and
began unloading an amazing amount of equipment
from the backseat of the Integra.

Two heavy duty flashlights. A crowbar. Some old boards. A couple of tarps. And two brand-new shovels.

"Help me carry this stuff."

"What's it all
for?"
But Phil helped. Gravel
crunched under his feet as he followed James on one
of the little winding paths. They went up some
weathered wooden stairs and down the other side
and then they were in Toyland.

That was what somebody at the funeral had called
it. Phil had overheard two business friends of Cliff's
talking about it. It was a section of the cemetery
where mostly kids were buried. You could tell with
out even looking at the headstones because there
were teddy bears and things on the graves.

Poppy's grave was right on the edge of Toyland. It
didn't have a headstone yet, of course. There was
only a green plastic marker.

James dumped his armload on the grass and then
knelt to examine the ground with a flashlight.

Phil stood silently, looking around the cemetery.
He was still scared, partly with the normal fear that
they'd get caught before they got finished, and partly
with the supernatural fear that they
wouldn't.
The
only sounds were crickets and distant traffic. Tree
branches and bushes moved gently in the wind.

"Okay," James said. "First we've got to peel this sod off."

"Huh?" Phil hadn't even thought about why there
was already grass on the new grave. But of course it
was sod. James had found the edge of one strip and
was rolling it up like a carpet.

Phil found another edge. The strips were about six
feet long by one and a half feet wide. They were
heavy, but it wasn't too hard to roll them up and off
the foot of the grave.

"Leave 'em there. We've got to put them on again
afterward," James grunted. "We don't want it to look
as if this place has been disturbed."

A light went on for Phil.
"That's
why the tarps
and stuff."

"Yeah. A little mess won't be suspicious. But if we
leave dirt scattered everywhere, somebody's going to
wonder." James laid the boards around the perimeter
of the grave, then spread the tarps on either side.
Phil helped him straighten them.

What was left where the sod had been was fresh,
loamy soil. Phil positioned a
flashlight
and picked up
a shovel.

I don't believe I'm doing this, he thought.

But he was doing it. And as long as all he thought
about was the physical work, the job of digging a
hole in the ground, he was okay. He concentrated on that and stepped on the shovel.

It went straight into the dirt, with no resistance. It was easy to spade up one shovelful of dirt and drop it onto the tarp. But by about the thirtieth shovelful,
he was getting tired.

"This is insane. We need a backhoe," he said, wip
ing his forehead.