Romeo took a breath, glanced around like he was trying to remember something he had forgotten, and then spoke again like he was replying to an unspoken question.
“Yes, that’s right, don’t rely on your dog. He might be the best guard dog in the entire world, but he can’t help you with this. You train that dog so that when he hears or smells unexpected guests, he goes to his safe place. Train him to make it through the night without having to go out. That’s what you need to hear. You get all of that?”
“I think so,” Ricky said, “so can you tell us what…”
“Then repeat it back,” Romeo said. “Not verbatim, just the salient points.”
“Sorry?” Ricky asked.
Alan spoke up. “They’re superstitious about returning to a place where one of them has been killed. We need several light sources with no mechanical switches. Don’t trust anyone. Train dogs to stay away from strangers.”
“That’s pretty close,” Romeo said. He turned his head and shouted, “Albert!”
It was several seconds of waiting before Alan heard the dog’s feet climbing a set of stairs that were around the corner. Just after that, a big dog with a non-stop tail came through from the living room. Albert went to Ricky first, sniffing at his shoes and pants and then thumping his tail on the floor as he sat while Ricky scratched his head.
“Albert loves people, he knows what vampires smell like, and I’m sure that he can tell the difference. I’m not saying your dog should stay away from strangers. I’m saying that he should go to his safe place whenever there is unexpected company. You never know what might happen.”
Albert went to Alan, inspected his shoes and then Alan pet his head for a minute before he went to Romeo’s side.
“Mr. Libby, can you tell us what happened to you? We’re trying to put more facts around what happened to us and figure out how to prevent it from happening again.”
“I’m afraid I’m beyond all that,” Romeo said.
“Pardon?” Ricky asked.
“I don’t have it in me. I went through those events in my head a million times and boiled down everything I knew into what I’ve already told you. I stay here and I stay safe. I train my dog to go to his spot, and he stays safe. That’s what I need to know. The rest is down in the well. I don’t let it up to the surface—too much pain and I don’t have anything left to learn.”
“But we have more we need to learn,” Ricky said. “We were at a hotel when they attacked. Living there is not an option, so we can’t just stay in a place where they’ve already been dispatched, as you put it. We have to live our lives in our homes, and we’re afraid that they’ll come back for us.”
Romeo nodded. “If that’s the case, you’re probably right.”
Ricky frowned and wrinkled his brow when it was clear that Romeo wasn’t going to continue.
Alan looked back and forth between them. With the current line of questioning, they were at a standoff.
“Mr. Libby…”
“Romeo,” the man corrected.
“Romeo, how did you guess that Ricky would bring me? How did you even know about me?”
Romeo smiled. When he did, the dog thumped his tail against the floor.
“Because I’ve heard of you. You’re the one who chased some sorcerers out of Kingston.”
Ricky looked at Alan with raised eyebrows.
“Honestly,” Alan said, “we were just trying to protect our son. I didn’t know what kind of ceremony they were trying to do and I just knew that I wasn’t going to let it involve Joe.”
“That’s smart,” Romeo said. “They would have used him up.”
Alan shook his head. “How do you know about that?”
Romeo smiled.
“I make it my business to know. When something like that is going on, it’s impossible for everyone to keep quiet about it. They like to think that they’re keeping it to themselves, but more people know than you would expect.”
“What are you two talking about?” Ricky asked.
Alan waved his hand. “It’s the other side to the story that I’ve already filled you in about.”
“It’s okay to talk about here,” Romeo said. “They won’t catch your scent here.”
“I’d rather not,” Alan said. “Maybe we should drop it.”
The old man just looked at Alan, not responding.
Ricky sounded frustrated and a little mad when he spoke again.
“This needs to stop,” Ricky said. “I know you said that you didn’t care about my family, but I do. My parents and my brother are going to get pulled into this and you both know things that you won’t tell me. I’m not going to let anything happen to them so both of you need to bring me up to speed.”
Alan thought back to their conversation in the car.
“Yeah,” Alan said. “Okay. I’ll give you the other side of what happened to my family. You’re sure it’s okay here?”
Romeo nodded.
“Ricky, I told you about the creatures that move through my property every October and how we used them to help Joe when he was sick, but I didn’t really tell you the other side. There were other people who were trying to use Joe’s sickness to entrap those creatures and use them for their own benefit. They were trying to do a kind of spiritual marriage between a child of their family and Joe. With his cancer as part of the bait, they wanted to turn their girl into a sorcerer, as Romeo put it, so she could carry on a tradition of harnessing the power of the creatures. I’m guessing that Romeo has firsthand
