Tales of a Night Walker By Bert McKenzie Copyright 2010
Chapter 22
I couldn't believe it. We had fought so hard for nothing. I was holding my lover in my arms and he was dead. There was nothing I could do. All the special powers I possessed were just a waste. Frank was gone and it was my fault. There hadn't even been time for me to convert him and give him an immortal life. He had bled out so rapidly. I have never wanted to die so badly. If only someone would drive a stake through my heart. I looked up into the faces of the man who had helped me and his son. Their eyes were full of pity, but there was nothing they could offer to help.
Then I heard the laughter, a low, deep chuckle. It was my father. I looked up to see him standing there about 20 yards from me. He was laughing at my pain. "That will teach you, boy," he said, the laughter still in that cruel voice I remembered so well from my childhood. "You were an abomination as a person, desiring another man. And you're an abomination as a vampire, falling in love with a human. And now you're keeping company with two of those blue blooded devil creatures. Boy you just shouldn't exist."
The anger was boiling up inside me, but before I could even react I heard another voice. "You've got one thing wrong, bucko." It was a woman's voice, a human voice. "He's got friends who care about him. But what have you got?" I looked over and saw Kelly standing close to Flesar and his son. She began to walk toward my father who was several yards away. "And as far as who shouldn't exist, I'd say it's you, not Jeff."
"Kelly, no!" I shouted. I wanted to run to her to stop her, but I was still holding Frank's body.
"Another foolish human," my father said, the mirth evident in his voice. "You think you are going to harm me, human?" he asked in amusement.
"I know something you don't know," she said as she stopped several yards in front of him.
"And what is that?"
"That Walmart sells battery powered ultraviolet lamps." And suddenly it was the light of the sun shining on the old man. I could feel the painful heat on my face, on my hands, but I wasn't standing in the path of that bright light. I was behind it. My father's expression went from sardonic to shocked, then horrified. He tried to turn away, but suddenly his head seemed to burst into flames. In moments his whole body was a torch, and then it just seemed to turn to ash and collapse. Kelly turned off the light and watched as the ashes crumpled to the ground. She then ran back to me and dropped to her knees, tears coming to her eyes as she looked down at Frank, lying in my arms with his blood slowly dripping onto my clothing.
After Frank had been taken by my father, I tried to track them down but came up empty. My father had taken him in a vehicle and that ended the scent trail I followed out of the airport terminal and into the parking garage. I didn't know what to do or where to go, so I called Kelly. She told me to come back to Auburn. She was certain that my father would want to contact me. Why else would he take Frank unless it was bait to trap me? And where else could he call me, but at my home in Auburn. My new phone number may not have been in a book, but it was certainly listed with directory assistance. I knew she was right, although it drove me crazy to take a plane all the way back to Kansas.
Kelly met the plane at the airport and booked me into a hotel for the day. That evening we drove back to Auburn and I sat at the phone. The call came about midnight. It was my father's taunting voice, telling me to meet him in Jenkins, Kentucky. It was a tiny little town in the Appalachians. Kelly packed a quick bag of supplies and came with me. She had already foreseen the coming together of me and another who was searching for my father. Her bag of supplies included herbs, crystals and candles.
How my father had captured Jayron, I will never know. But his father, Flesar was willing to join our search when we met up in the woods just outside of Jenkins. Flesar spoke fluent English, but said his son did not. They were from the world of which May had told me. Apparently vampires and witches were not the only supernatural creatures. The old Celtic fairyland did exist and Flesar and his son came into our world through some sort of magical portal. The fairies weren't the tiny winged creatures from children's stories, but tall, well built, very human looking individuals. In fact, Flesar confided that many of them had often visited our world and passed for normal people. Their main differences included pointed ears, which were easily disguised under longer hair, and the color of their blood, blue instead of the human red. Flesar had no fear of vampires since he explained to me that their blood was poisonous to our kind. He wasn't worried that my father would drink his son, but that wouldn't stop my sadistic relative from any other form of torture, including death.
We worked together to find a trail. I was able to scent my father and the more subtle aroma that must be Flesar's son, Jayron. The three of us were in the field when we saw Frank and Jayron running in our direction closely pursued by a pack of strange vampires. I told Kelly to stay back while the two of us handled the vampires. I had no idea she had already picked up the battery powered sunlamp when she first found out I was a vampire. She brought it with her along with her other more magical and less hi-tech supplies.
We buried Frank on the side of a mountain in the Appalachian chain. It was a beautiful location that looked out over a little valley with a winding creek running through it. It was a dull brown now with the colors of winter, but in the spring it would be covered with green and should be a lovely view. Flesar and Jayron helped to construct a small cairn of stone over the grave. I only wished I could join my love under the earth. I too should be sleeping in a grave, letting the moss and ivy grow on the stones overhead.
Kelly found an empty glade in the forest that she said had all the right lay lines running under it. These were apparently magical conduits she felt in the earth. She then set up the candles and crystals, and chanted some words from an old book she carried with her. No one was more surprised than I when what appeared to be a crack of lightning rent the air. Before us in the center of the glade was what looked like a glowing patch of blue light. It stretched between two of the crystals and wavered as if seen through the warmth of heat rising on a summer's day. "This is the doorway to our world," Flesar explained. "Come with us," he invited.
I was sorely tempted. May had said the fairyland was a place where night walkers would become human again. If only Frank had lived to see this, the two of us might step through that doorway together. But being human held no appeal for me now. Only a true death called to me. I shook my head sadly and then reached out to grasp his hand in thanks. Instead, the strange man grabbed me in a hug. It was odd how I kept making friends in the most unusual of circumstances. Death kept bringing me close to strangers. The boy also hugged me, and then the two of them turned toward the glowing patch of light and walked into it. They seemed to shimmer for a moment, and then disappeared. Once they were gone, the blue glow faded away. Kelly packed up her crystals and her candles and then gave me a hug. "Let's go home," she said. "We have a lot of explaining to do, like telling Harriet and the others at the theater." I told her I would return with her, but that it wasn't home. I had found part of my destiny, but this wasn't the end of my existence, so I would have to move on and find my life, or whatever it was I was living, elsewhere.
Author's note: This is not the end of the story. There are further adventures ahead for Jeff. Please continue reading.