Page 69 of Whispers at Dusk
“So, that’s it? You’re trying to make up for your inadequacies?” Della asked him.
“No, I’m lying. I was popular in high school. And, I’m assuming, that’s the image you have of me. I didn’t take many photos. I was never a selfie guy.”
“So, why?” she asked.
“Maybe I believe I am buying immortality.”
“That’s a pile of...well, you know,” Della told him.
“Ah, the lovely Della. Not even words that threaten of dirt will pass through your beautiful lips. Such a lady to be out by herself on the streets.”
“Where’s Lydia Sanderson?” she asked him.
“Ah, well, wouldn’t you like to know.”
“That would be why I’m asking,” she said dryly.
“Special lady, I didn’t even assign her to an idiot local, but not half so special as you!” he said.
“You don’t know anything about me,” she told him.
He started to laugh. “But I met you. I know you. Those eyes of yours—beautiful. And I know your veins, too,” he added, laughing.
“Oh, yeah. Sven, the helpful bartender!”
“I was helpful. I gave you a pair of murderers.”
“Murderers you trained, who were killing at your command.”
“I do have my fun. People are so easy. Now, we must agree on the stupidity of man when you get him from the right angle. Of course, put a crowd together and get them going, and you can garner some unbelievable mass stupidity. But...that’s not my thing. I like wedging thoughts and ideas and different truths into minds that are soft and impressionable and willing so desperately to believe. Then again, who am I to say all the legends and stories in the books are false?”
“Books. I see. So, you’re going with the general rules of a vampire story. And many vampires can be shapeshifters, so that fits right in.”
“Do you read, Special Agent Hamilton?”
“What a rude question. Everyone reads.”
“Ah, but do you enjoy the imaginations of some of the brilliant storytellers through the ages who have given us vampires norms?”
“I love reading. So, yes, I’ve read quite a bit. Tell me. Do you sparkle?” she asked him.
He laughed at that. As she listened to him, she looked around, trying to do so as casually as possible.
“Define sparkle. My charm is simply sparkling. Or at least it is in several of my personae. Yes! My personality is sparkling. But then, you met me. Sven was a great bartender, right?”
“I’m sure they’re sorry to have lost Sven,” she said, deadpan. “Where else have I met you?”
He enjoyed taunting the police. He loved thinking he was creating an ingenious game—and he was winning. She needed to keep him talking.
“Just as Sven. But then again, maybe Sven wasn’t alone. I am just about all-seeing, but...hey, not even I can know everything.”
“No, you can’t. You can’t know everything we know.”
“Everything you know—well, you know it because you get it from me! Being Sven was fun. Finding that idiot couple was fun, too, and talking them into believing so many kills created immortality—they believed me! Humanity is amazing. Idiocy is amazing. But history helps me here. Every society known to man from before the time of recorded history has had some sort of vampire, a blood-sucking demon. And then books! I do love books. Stoker did so much research on Transylvania, Hungary, and Romania, and the legends to be found around the world, and then you have more modern epics, other authors through the decades...vampires! They’re great. Hmm...and just how many of them are there out there? That’s what you don’t know. Are they already at work in Orkney, or did I come here to partake in choice of blood myself? Ah, well, you will never catch me. I’m already gone.”
“No, you’re not. You’re near here, talking to me,” she told him flatly.
He laughed and put on a rich Scottish burr. “Oh, aye, lass, ye be e’er so right! Maybe. Or maybe I am all-seeing and my eye in the sky is watching you. Aye, lass, replenishment! Maybe I am heading home, maybe seeking further afield! But that’s not the play at the moment, no, not at all! Think of it this way...you can come after me and others die, or you can use your brilliant mind and save a few lives. It doesn’t matter to me one way or the other. If you’d only been a wee bit different, you’d have ruled the world with me throughout eternity. Well, for the next several decades, anyway!”
