Rule of Vampire

Chapter 4

Chapter 4

The SUV’s door flew open as Terrill walked down the front path. There was a woman with short blonde hair and icy blue eyes sitting in the passenger seat, waiting for him. She wasn’t smiling; she wasn’t scowling. Her face was carefully neutral.

“Are you looking for me?” he asked.

“Yes, Terrill. We need to talk. Get in.” Her voice was deep and mellow and hypnotic. He almost obeyed without thinking, but with an effort, he pulled back.

“Stop it,” he said. “I know your tricks.”

“Of course you do,” she said. She frowned, and it was as if the skin of her face was feeling the force of frown muscles for the first time, as if it was virgin territory. “You are a vampire.”

“I was a vampire,” Terrill said.

“That’s impossible,” she said. “Once a vampire, always a vampire.” The frown remained on her face.

“Oh? You’ve been following me for the last few days. How do you think I walk around in the sunlight? You’re close enough now to hear the beating of my heart, to smell the blood coursing through my veins.”

She didn’t answer.

“What do you want?” he demanded.

Suddenly, she became conciliatory. “I’m not your enemy, Terrill. I have nothing but respect for you and your views. In fact, I voted in favor of asking you to join the Council.”

Terrill didn’t trust this any more than he had her original no-nonsense approach. He just stared at her. For a moment, he had to struggle to remember what she was talking about. “The Council of Vampires?” he said aloud as the memory came back. He started laughing. That bunch of meddlers! He’d barely been aware of their founding and had pretty much ignored them ever since.

“Things have changed, Terrill,” the woman said. “My name is Clarkson, and I think you’d better listen to me.”

Something in her tone caught him short, and he stopped laughing.

“Get in the backseat,” she said.

To his surprise, he did. He didn’t think he’d been charmed, but he wasn’t absolutely certain. As the SUV pulled away from the curb, Terrill suddenly remembered that he was human and these were vampires, and he was completely defenseless. How interesting that I’m not afraid, he thought. He could die at any moment, but he felt calm, whereas all those centuries that he’d been immortal, he’d been afraid of losing his life. How very strange.

“You may not know it, Terrill, but your Rules of Vampire are now the law among our kind, enforced by the Council,” Clarkson said.

“The vampires I knew would never stand for that,” he said.

“The vampires you knew are mostly dead, many of them at the hands of the Council. We’re no joke, Terrill, whatever you might think.”

How ironic, Terrill thought. He’d first formulated the Rules of Vampire as a lark during World War II. Vampires had been disappearing at an alarming rate, so he’d tried to construct some guidelines for them to follow, to help them survive. But though they were called rules, they’d really always been suggestions:

Rule 1. Never trust a human.

Rule 2. Never leave the remains of a kill, or if you must, disguise the cause of death.

Rule 3. Never feed where you live.

Rule 4. Never create a pattern. Kill at random.

Rule 5. Never kill for the thrill. Feed only when necessary to eat.

Rule 6. Never steal in the short term; create wealth for the long term.

As if she could read his mind, Clarkson smiled. Again, the creases on her smooth face seemed almost unnatural. “We’ve come up with a few more since then, most of them just corollaries. All of them enforced, punishable by death.”

Terrill supposed it was possible. He had been in hiding for decades, living by a code that was even more severe than his original Rules, one that had made the Rules moot: he had refused to kill humans. He’d been out of the loop for a long time.

“You want me to join you?” he said.

“It has been decided by a vote of the Council,” Clarkson said.

“And if I refuse?”

She turned around in the front seat and her blue eyes sought his, making sure that he was paying attention. “You can’t refuse, Terrill. The Council has become all-powerful. Every vampire would turn against you—and those you love.”

They were pulling up in front of his house, and as the Escalade slowed, Clarkson’s eyes went to the kitchen window, where Terrill could see Sylvie whistling as she fixed dinner.

“But I am no longer vampire,” he protested. “Surely you can see that I’ll be of no use to you.”

“I’m sorry, Terrill. Truly, I am. But I’m afraid that if I returned and told the Council that you have miraculously turned human, they would be even more determined to have you in their power. You’d best return with me and make your case to the full Council.”

To his surprise, Clarkson let him get out of the SUV. She got out with him and stood next to him on the sidewalk. She was nearly as tall as he was, and her posture was impeccable. She might have been a Greek statue, pale and lovely in the moonlight. He glanced toward the kitchen window and saw Sylvie staring out at them.

“I would rather you came willingly,” Clarkson said. “I’ll give you a week. If you want to talk to me, I’ll be staying downtown at the Oxford. I hope you’ll make the right decision, Terrill. You…” Unbelievably, she blushed. “You’ve always been my hero.”

She got back into the Escalade and snapped an order at the burly driver, and they shot away.

Terrill walked slowly up the path. Sylvie was waiting at the door. She didn’t say anything; she just took him in her arms. She’d wait for him to explain if he wanted to, or let it go completely if he didn’t want to.

Later that night, it all poured out of him.