“Are you assholes crazy?!” Malcolm ranted at the strangers in “his” plaza. “I don’t want another Constantinople here. Go home, leave me in peace, for Christ’s sake.”
The tall black woman stepped forward. “I’m Sister Amanda Malraux, Mr. Donald, of the Community of St. Francis. Please listen to these young men. Especially to Jeremy here.”
She wore a navy turtleneck and nice jeans and her eyes held an inner peace that made Malcolm think for an instant that there might be a God after all. He shook her hand and said, “Pardon my language, Sister.”
She made a gesture of dismissal: my faith can withstand a little profanity. The teenager with the haunted eyes broke in. “We’re not just here to kill a few more vampires, sir. We’re here to kick them off the Earth.” He turned red at the importance of what he’d just said.
Malcolm rounded on him. “What are you talking about?”
“My friends and I, we were going to be, y’know, vampire hunters, sir? But then I, kind of, found these tee shirts?”
Malcolm rolled his eyes and Jeremy cringed but Sister Amanda said quietly, “Please hear him out, Mr. Donald.” She seemed protective of Jeremy, as if she wanted to wrap him in a cloak of love and forgiveness.
“Call me Malcolm, please. Awright, sorry, young man. You were saying?”
“So, there’s this couple back east, they’ve got a whole website of these tee shirts and stuff, in like every language? They’ve even got some in Eskimo. Thick ones, sweatshirts.” He saw Malcolm’s patience wearing thin and sped up. “W-well, they’re all about how the whole earth is a home and, y’know, the vampires should have to leave? But it’s not a joke, do-don’t you see? So I, like, joined their online community. We’re growing every day.” His voice shook with emotion. “We’re gonna get those monsters off the earth. We just have to get enough people to believe it!”
The nun finished, “We’re here to spend the night in your home, if you’ll have us, Mr. Donald. Malcolm. As a way of raising public awareness of what must happen. All of these young men are over eighteen except for Jeremy, and I have signed permission from his parents.” She looked sad, as if she’d expected them to be sensible and say no. “Will you allow us to stay and, assuming all goes well, to speak at your next press conference?”
I just wanted someone to stay over and schmooze, Malcolm thought sourly. But he said, “I don’t think you’ve given me a choice, really. The sun’ll be down before you could get to anywhere now.”
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“I’m afraid we were somewhat counting on that. Malcolm.” She smiled at him and he saw their pile of camping gear beside his tent.
“Allright, come on in, welcome to my home.” He turned and shouted into the growing dark, “Just them, dammit!”
♦
Lavinia talked as she drove.
“You know, kid, I hurt a lot of people, my time. There’s things I said to some exes, I’d give a thousand bucks to take back. Shit, when I was a kid, there was this dork named Solly Schwedelman, he’d be fully justified to kick my ass if he could find me, I terrorized that poor schmuck.”
Sally stayed miserable as, predictably, Lavinia concluded, “But I didn’t fuck up their whole lives. Maybe I had a small piece in who they are now.”
Lavinia didn’t really understand what she’d done. Her parents had never found out what she did to Carrie; they’d kicked her out for kissing a girl. But she’d had sex with her sister when Carrie was a minor. They were both minors but she, Sally, was old enough to be considered a perpetrator. She’d crossed a line there and the moment of disgusted revelation must still be coming to Lavinia.
Following the GPS, they passed the turnoff to Twin Peaks, marked “Closed one hour before sunset except local traffic.” The sun was hidden but not quite down as they wound through several streets and reached top of a hill which plummeted steeper than a rollercoaster.
“Shit.” Lavinia parked. “These fucking hills. House must be halfway down. We’re out of time, babe, all your mishegas. They’ll be out before we find it.”
This was it then. They would have to do it here. Lavinia took Sally’s cold hand. “You okay, baby? Twenty seconds or so. I feel it.”
Sally nodded, eyes full of pain.
“Hear me, tiger. Nothing you did to her changes how good you are. Jesus Christ, you risked your life for her, that’s how we met! I see your goodness, so quit insulting my intelligence and good taste, huh?”
As Sally gave the surprised laugh Lavinia intended, the vampires came out. Like TV snow, they blocked the quaint Victorian houses, cold delirium shrouding in ice mist the sane neighborhood streets.
Their faces were all blank, evil, soulless white. They dressed in graveyard clothes, burial suits. There was no telling any of them apart. Slavering mouths pressed against the glass of the windows, sinister hands tried the driver’s door, ancient tongues hissed in delight as they found they were not blocked. They pushed the tongue of the door latch so it clunked.
As the door opened, Lavinia spoke the words they’d planned. “Wherever my beloved and I are together is our home.” But all Sally could think was I betrayed my sister; I don’t deserve this. If she could have put her feelings into such clear words, she might have denied them, but this bitter frost was laid deep.
She stepped out holding hands with Lavinia and the crowd surged around them like an ice floe but did not grab. Lavinia waited for her to speak the words too; Sally, rational thought gone, waited only for Lavinia to roar, “Leave the house and never come back!”
A marble face swam into her field of vision, jaws opened to reveal glistening teeth.