“Then why did you visit Mary O’Hare?”
“Oh, so you’ve already been to see her, have you?”
“She said you used to visit her every so often.”
“I might have, what of it?”
“Look, Mr Milch,” said Amanda, who was finally getting tired of Milch’s attitude, and that of all the inhabitants of Radcliff she had met, “I’m not here to make any accusations. In fact, I think it’s probably quite clear that I don’t really know what I’m doing. I just want to see if I can find anything to help prevent a possible attacker from escaping, leaving him free to do what he did again. I don’t know if you care about such things, but I do. I’m only a vampire myself because some bastard did the same thing to me as they did to the boy who was attacked. As far as I know, the school probably sent someone out as experienced as me to try and find out who took my life. And what happened? Nothing! No one was found and it was just forgotten about. I couldn’t help as I didn’t even see who it was; like in almost every other such case that I know, whoever did the thing got away.”
The contrast between the level of volume of Amanda’s last words and the silence that followed made Amanda feel as if she had left a ringing in her own ears. However, she did not regret what she had said to Milch, and when she finally looked into his face once more, it was plain for her to see that she had gotten through to the man as for the first time since he had joined her in the clearing, his face softened.
“I suppose I used to go there because of the company,” said Milch, who then paused a moment to sweep his thick, dirt encrusted fingers through his curls. “To Mary’s, I am referring. It was not so much that I sought her company out; no, it was the reverse. She must have heard about me from someone. I am not so difficult to locate, as you have discovered for yourself, and she came and asked me, again and again, to come and see her in her kitchen.”
Milch looked up into Amanda’s eyes, leading her to try her best to look as interested as she could to lead the man to go on.
“I guess she was even lonelier than me. I don’t know what I can tell you about her; I never even saw anything of her house apart from her old-fashioned kitchen. We never talked about her either, just the weather and her garden. Oh, except for the times when Mary would challenge me on my reasons for not drinking the right kind of blood and how strange it was that I seemed to be able to live off animals without the side effects. She suspected I was lying; she would always ask if I had a secret, whether I was feasting on the locals.” Milch laughed, before continuing, “I thought she was joking at first, but she was not. I even laughed the first few times that she said it; she would just stare at me with a confused look on her face.”
“Do you know why it is that you’re not affected by only drinking animal blood?” asked Amanda tentatively, worried that she might remind Milch that she was not wanted in his clearing, but just as concerned that he might stop talking.
“That’s what you all want to know isn’t it?” replied Milch sharply, leading Amanda to fear she had broken the spell. But after taking a moment to recompose himself, he carried on. “That’s what I figured about her as well, about Mary. She also wanted to know how she could free herself from the high prices of human blood and the hunger, but I had nothing to tell her. When she finally realised that I had nothing to tell her, she stopped asking me to come.”
“Did you never talk about it at the school? Or ask anyone else?”
“Give me a break! That school of yours tried to hook me on their blood; just like every other institution, they’re after control. No, I only found out about my good fortune after I ran out of the stuff they supplied me with and I was unable to get a job. By that point, I’d had enough of them and never went back. Anyway, talking of such things, I think our conversation is almost at an end. I can honestly tell you that I know nothing about the other vampires here that will help you in any way.”
“Well, thank you…”
“Hang on a second, I said almost. Now there is one thing you will tell me: How did you find out where I was?”
“Another vampire in the town, Samuel Packard, told me I might find you here.” In other circumstances, Amanda believed she would have had reservations about disclosing to Milch who had informed her of his location, however, she found she had no compunction about informing the man that it had been Packard.
Milch became lost in thought for a moment, picked up his torch from the ground and then muttered something under his breath that Amanda thought might have been, “He would.” She waited for Milch to say something else, but he just sat on his patch of earth and slowly swivelled the torch around in one hand.
“Well, thank you, Johann, I should go…”
“Do you like it?” interrupted Milch. “Are you glad that you’re a vampire?”
“I didn’t choose it; I guess now I just go from day to day.”
The man grunted. Amanda assumed that the sound was as close as the man
