That sounded like the Lorena I’d known.
“Solomon was impressed with her savagery and excited by the fresh blood. He grabbed the dying man and drained him, and when he threw the body into the yard of the next house, Lorena was impressed and fascinated. She wanted to be like he was.”
“That sounds about right.”
Judith smiled faintly. “She was illiterate but tenacious and a tremendous survivor. He was far more intelligent, but he had poor killing skills. By then, he had figured some things out, and so he was able to bring her over. They took blood from each other sometimes, and that gave them the courage to find others like us, to learn what they needed to learn to live well instead of merely surviving. The two of them practiced how to be successful vampires, tested the limits of their new natures, and made an excellent team.”
“So Solomon was your grandfather, since he begat Lorena,” I said biblically. “What happened after that?”
“Eventually, the bloom went off the rose,” Judith said. “Makers and their children stay together longer than a merely sexual couple but not forever. Lorena betrayed Solomon. She was caught with the half-drained body of a dead child, but she was able to play a human woman pretty convincingly. She told the men who grabbed her that Solomon was the one who’d killed the child, that he’d made her carry the body, so the blood was all over her. Solomon barely got out of the town alive—they were in Natchez, Mississippi. He never saw Lorena again. He’s never met Bill, either. Lorena found him after the War between the States.
“As Bill later told me, one night Lorena was wandering through this area. It was much harder then to stay concealed, especially in rural areas. There weren’t as many people to hunt you down, true, and there was little or no communication. But strangers were conspicuous and with the thinner population, the choices of prey were less. An individual death was noticed more. A body had to be hidden very carefully, or the death meticulously staged. At least there wasn’t much organized law enforcement.”
I reminded myself not to look disgusted. This knowledge was nothing new. That was how vampires had lived until a few years ago.
“Lorena saw Bill and his family through the windows of their house.” Judith looked away. “She fell in love. For several nights, she listened to the family. During the day she would dig a hole in the woods and bury herself. At night, she’d watch.
“Finally, she decided to act. She realized—even Lorena realized—Bill would never forgive her if she killed his children, so she waited until he came out in the middle of the night to find out why the dog wouldn’t stop barking. When Bill came out with his rifle, she crept up behind him and took him.”
I thought of Lorena, so close to my own family, right through the woods. She could have come to my great-great-grandparents’ place just as easily, and my whole family history would have been different.
“She turned him that night, buried him, and helped him resurrect three nights later.”
I couldn’t imagine how shattered Bill must have been. Everything gone in the blink of an eye: his whole life taken and altered and given back to him in a terrible form.
“I guess she took him away from here,” I said.
“Yes, that was essential. She had arranged a death for him. She’d smeared a clearing with his blood and left his gun there and rags from his clothing. He told me it looked as though a panther had gotten him. So they traveled together, and while he was bound to her, he hated her, too. He was miserable with her, but she remained obsessed with him. After thirty years, she tried to make him happier by killing a woman who looked very much like his wife.”
“Oh, gosh,” I said, trying not to feel sick. “You, huh?” That was why her face had been vaguely familiar. I’d seen Bill’s old family pictures.
Judith nodded. “Evidently, Bill saw me entering a neighbor’s house, going to a party with my family. He followed me home and watched me, because the resemblance caught his fancy. When Lorena discovered this new interest, she thought Bill would stay with her if she provided him with a companion.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m really, really sorry.”
Judith shrugged. “It wasn’t Bill’s fault, but you’ll understand why I had to think about it before I came in answer to your message. Solomon is in Europe now, or I would have asked him to come with me. I dread seeing Lorena again, and I was afraid. afraid she would be here, afraid you would have asked her to help Bill, too. Or she might have made up this story to bring me here, for all I knew. Is she. Is she around?”
“She’s dead. Didn’t you know?”
Judith’s round blue eyes went wide. She couldn’t be any more pale, but her eyes closed for a long moment. “I felt a strong wrench around eighteen months ago. That was Lorena’s death?”
I nodded.
“That’s why she hasn’t summoned me. Oh, this is wonderful, wonderful!”
Judith looked like a different woman.
“I guess I’m a little surprised that Bill didn’t get in touch with you to tell you.”
“Maybe he thought I would know it. Children and makers are bound. But I wasn’t sure. It seemed too good to be true.” Judith smiled, and she looked suddenly pretty, even with the fangs. “Where is Bill?”
“He’s through the woods.” I pointed in the right direction. “In his old home.”
“I’ll be able to track him once I’m outside,” she said happily. “Oh, to be with him without Lorena near!”
Ah. What?
Before, it had been okay for Judith to sit and talk my ear off, but now all of a sudden, she was ready to take off like a scalded cat. I was sitting there with my eyes narrowed, wondering what I’d done.
“I’ll heal him, and I’m sure he’ll thank you after,” she said, and I felt like I’d been dismissed. “Was Bill there when Lorena died?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Did he suffer much punishment for killing her?”
“He didn’t kill her,” I said. “I did.”
She froze, staring at me as if I’d suddenly announced I was King Kong. She said, “I owe you my freedom. Bill must think very highly of you.”
“I believe he does,” I said. To my embarrassment, she bent to kiss my hand. Her lips were cold.
“Bill and I can be together now,” she said. “Finally! I’ll see you another night to tell you how grateful I am, but now I have to go to him.” And she was out of the house and zipping through the woods to the south before I could say Jack Robinson.
I kind of felt like a very large fist had hit me upside the head.
I would be a total sleaze to feel anything but happy for Bill. Now he could hang around with Judith for centuries, if he wanted to. With the never-aging duplicate of his wife. I made myself smile with gladness.
When looking happy didn’t make me happy, I did twenty jumping jacks, then twenty push-ups. Okay, that’s better, I thought, as I lay on my stomach on the living room floor. Now I was ashamed that my arm muscles were trembling. I remembered the workouts the Lady Falcons softball coach had put us through, and I knew Coach Peterson would kick my butt if she could see me now. On the other hand, I wasn’t seventeen anymore.
As I rolled over to lie on my back, I considered that fact soberly. It wasn’t the first occasion I’d felt the passage of time, but it was the first occasion that I’d noticed my body had changed into something a little less efficient. I had to contrast that with the lot of the vampires I knew. At least 99 percent of them had become vamps at the peak of their lives. There were a few who had been younger, like Alexei, and a few who had been older, like the Ancient Pythoness, but most of them had ranged in age from sixteen to thirty-five at the time of their first death. They’d never have to apply for Social Security or Medicare. They’d never need to worry about hip replacements or lung cancer or arthritis.
By the time I reached middle age (if I was so lucky, since my life was what you would call “high risk”), I would be slowing down in perceptible ways. After that, the wrinkles would only grow and deepen, my skin would look looser on my bones and sport a spot or two, and my hair would thin out. My chin would sag a little, and my boobs would, too. My joints would ache when I sat too long in one position. I’d have to get reading glasses.