Vincent
I had a hard time sleeping. After Romeo left, I’d gone to the store in the morning with the intention of speaking to Scott. Once Romeo had explained that the man had admitted to being a medium, I wanted more information. I’d missed my chance in seeing him because Bryce had been scheduled for the morning shift. After spending a short time at the store, I’d left and returned home to find my bed and get some much-needed sleep. Little did I know it was fruitless. I tossed and turned like mad.
My thoughts kept returning to Sergio and the other two vampires and the danger that waited just outside town. Though, I’d told Romeo that the Conclave most likely wouldn’t take up a second case over the same books, I wasn’t as certain as I’d tried to convey. If it was a legitimate claim, Sergio might prevail. I really should have just sold the books to him. The decision to keep them was one I hoped I wouldn’t regret. I didn’t know what they contained, but whatever it was, Robert had made me swear an oath to protect them, and I couldn’t go back on the promise to my maker. No vampire ever dared to do such things. It was unheard of.
After a sleepless day, I rose after sunset and decided I should venture out again. I really wanted to check in with my lover. I was still tired, but I dressed and stepped out onto the porch, surveying the front yard where only a couple of weeks ago, an entire pack of werewolves had positioned themselves behind their alpha, ready to kill me. If it hadn’t been for Romeo, I know I would have had a hard time of it that night. As it was, there were no scents of shifters in the air tonight.
I walked to the Civic and got in, adjusting the rearview mirror, and making a three-point turn. My driveway was long since my cabin was located deep in the woods. I’d very quickly decided I loved living in California’s redwood forest. It was so beautiful here but still cold even in early spring. I’d visited the redwoods only once before but that had been over a hundred years ago. Still, the place felt like it would be somewhere I could be happy for a very long time.
I was thrilled to have Romeo in my life and humbled that he’d chosen me as his mate. No one had ever wanted me that way before. No one had certainly ever loved me.
I drove out onto the main road, headed toward town. My commute took me past an old drive-in movie theater. I’d passed it every day since my arrival in town, but I’d never thought to just stop and look at it. There was no reason to. The large screen was caked with dirt and what I figured had to be paint, since it looked like someone had fired brightly colored paintballs at it. They’d spattered and run down the screen which now looked more like a Jackson Pollock painting than an outdoor theater screen.
As I passed by tonight, I was surprised to see the screen lit up playing a grainy cartoon along with the headlights of several cars parked in spaces in the old lot. The lot itself was made of cracked asphalt. Tufts of grass had grown up through grooves, threatening to reclaim the surface back to that of the wide-open field it had once been. I slowed to a crawl, pulling onto the shoulder of the road and stopping just before the driveway to make sure I was seeing what I thought I was seeing. The lot was filled with cars—old cars—cars that all dated back to the 1950s and 60s, when I was sure the drive-in would have been a popular hangout for both teenagers and families alike.
I got out of the Civic to get a closer look at what I was seeing. The scene before me looked surreal. The cars were striking and alike in one aspect. They were all—to the last one—translucent. I could see right through them. The freakiest thing I’d ever seen was happening right before my eyes. Figures of what could only be ghosts were sitting in the cars, walking through the lot, paying for popcorn, candy, and drinks at the remnants of a concession stand. Smiling ghosts wearing brightly colored red and white translucent uniforms were serving up drinks and treats to the kids who stood by the sides of adult ghosts, holding out ghost money.
I shivered as I spotted a small figure standing at the edge of the woods far removed from the other ghosts. If it was a ghost I was looking at, he had to be a child. There was something different about him, setting him apart from the other child-sized figures at the drive-in. He was still translucent, but his skin and clothing were dark, smoky in color, different from the happy-go-lucky figures of other kids running around having a blast. He just stood there, looking on from his place in the woods, and I suddenly had the overwhelming feeling that he belonged nowhere… not here in this world…definitely not in the ghostly world I was seeing. My heart hurt for the little person, and I had no idea what I could or should do to help him.
As a vampire, I was intimate with being dead. But there was something different about vampires and ghosts. I’d met many ghosts over the centuries I’d lived. Some were happy like these ghosts, enjoying the camaraderie of others just like them. Some—a very few—were utterly miserable but like the ghost of Marley in the Scrooge tale, they’d made their own chains, link by link. Some, like Marley, tried to make up for the people they’d been in life by warning loved ones
