“I must’ve been less than seven ’cause they died when I was in the second grade.”
“How?”
“Flash flood. Caught them on the bridge west of here.”
Bill didn’t comment. Of course, he’d seen deaths piled upon deaths.
“Was the man lying?” he asked after a few seconds had gone by.
“Oh, yes. He planned to take Daddy’s money and run.”
“You have a gift.”
“Gift. Right.” I could feel the corners of my mouth pull down.
“It makes you different from other humans.”
“You’re telling me.” We walked for a moment in silence. “So you don’t consider yourself human at all?”
“I haven’t for a long time.”
“Do you really believe you’ve lost your soul?” That was what the Catholic Church was preaching about vampires.
“I have no way of knowing,” Bill said, almost casually. It was apparent that he’d brooded over it so often it was quite a commonplace thought to him. “Personally, I think not. There is something in me that isn’t cruel, not murderous, even after all these years. Though I can be both.”
“It’s not your fault you were infected with a virus.”
Bill snorted, even managing to sound elegant doing that. “There have been theories as long as there have been vampires. Maybe that one is true.” Then he looked as if he was sorry he’d said that. “If what makes a vampire is a virus,” he went on in a more offhand manner, “it’s a selective one.”
“How do you become a vampire?” I’d read all kinds of stuff, but this would be straight from the horse’s mouth.
“I would have to drain you, at one sitting or over two or three days, to the point of your death, then give you my blood. You would lie like a corpse for about forty-eight hours, sometimes as long as three days, then rise and walk at night. And you would be hungry.”
The way he said “hungry” made me shiver.
“No other way?”
“Other vampires have told me humans they habitually bite, day after day, can become vampires quite unexpectedly. But that requires consecutive, deep, feedings. Others, under the same conditions, merely become anemic. Then again, when people are near to death for some other reason, a car accident or a drug overdose, perhaps, the process can go . . . badly wrong.”
I was getting the creepies. “Time to change the subject. What do you plan on doing with the Compton land?”
“I plan on living there, as long as I can. I’m tired of drifting from city to city. I grew up in the country. Now that I have a legal right to exist, and I can go to Monroe or Shreveport or New Orleans for synthetic blood or prostitutes who specialize in our kind, I want to stay here. At least see if it’s possible. I’ve been roaming for decades.”
“What kind of shape is the house in?”
“Pretty bad,” he admitted. “I’ve been trying to clean it out. That I can do at night. But I need workmen to get some repairs done. I’m not bad at carpentry, but I don’t know a thing about electricity.”
Of course, he wouldn’t.
“It seems to me the house may need rewiring,” Bill continued, sounding for all the world like any other anxious homeowner.
“Do you have a phone?”
“Sure,” he said, surprised.
“So what’s the problem with the workmen?”
“It’s hard to get in touch with them at night, hard to get them to meet with me so I can explain what needs doing. They’re scared, or they think it’s a prank call.” Frustration was evident in Bill’s voice, though his face was turned away from me.
I laughed. “If you want, I’ll call them,” I offered. “They know me. Even though everyone thinks I’m crazy, they know I’m honest.”
“That would be a great favor,” Bill said, after some hesitation. “They could work during the day, after I’d met with them to discuss the job and the cost.”
“What an inconvenience, not being able to get out in the day,” I said thoughtlessly. I’d never really considered it before.
Bill’s voice was dry. “It certainly is.”
“And having to hide your resting place,” I blundered on.
When I felt the quality of Bill’s silence, I apologized.
“I’m sorry,” I said. If it hadn’t been so dark, he would have seen me turn red.
“A vampire’s daytime resting place is his most closely guarded secret,” Bill said stiffly.
“I apologize.”
“I accept,” he said, after a bad little moment. We reached the road and looked up and down it as if we expected a taxi. I could see him clearly by the moonlight,