most of the other properties around here. The home of a comfortably well-off middle-class suburban couple. There were no kids, I assumed. Letitia DeVane hadn’t mentioned any.
I parked up across the street and waited. The warm spring day was just the right side of comfortable for a stakeout. In the gardens off the street, kids played ball or chased pooches, sprinklers anointed lawns, neighbors chatted over the fence. It was the unlikeliest setting in which to expect to encounter a vampire.
Or, at least, the popular notion of what a vampire was.
Here’s the thing. Some of the myths about vampires are true. Others aren’t. Who knows how the false ones arose? Through imperfectly relayed folk tales down the generations, maybe. Or else vampires have evolved, becoming different creatures than the ones they were a few centuries ago.
They can survive in sunlight. We’ve covered that one already. They possess reflections, and they cast shadows. They’re not afraid to cross running water. (Where did that one come from?) They bleed.
People don’t get turned into vampires by being bitten by one, even repeatedly. Vampirism seems to be transmitted by infected blood, which means the vampire’s blood has to enter the victim’s bloodstream. This can happen by mistake, for example if the vampire has gum disease. More often, the vampire infects the victim deliberately, by tapping his own vein and applying his blood to an open wound of hers. Often, a vampire will stick to a regular food source, draining a little blood at a time from a single victim, enough to steadily weaken but not immediately kill the person. That’s what seemed to be happening with Letitia DeVane.
There are three more or less reliable ways of confirming somebody’s a vampire, in my experience. Short of actually being chomped by one of the bastards. I call these three ways Rafe’s Rules. There’s a hierarchy to them, based on how easy they are to implement. I intended to test Rule One, the easiest of them all, on Mr Oscar DeVane.
At a quarter of one, just as the heat was starting to stick my T-shirt to my skin, I saw movement on the driveway of the DeVane house. A black Camaro swung out onto the road, rather carelessly, I thought. Asshole. There were kids on the street. As the car passed me I saw him behind the wheel: DeVane, his suntan and slicked-back hair and mirror shades making him look like a movie-star mobster.
I fired up the VW and followed discreetly. It wasn’t hard to be unobtrusive; silver station wagons are a dime a dozen in soccer mom land. Once or twice I struggled to keep up, but I knew Columbus and its streets well, and I managed to stay on the Camaro’s tail.
I followed him all afternoon. During this time he went to a sports shop and bought fishing equipment, spent an hour or so in what must have been his downtown office, then headed back north to a golf course where he presumably played a few holes. I didn’t watch him doing it; I wasn’t interested. I just kept an eye on his car until he came out.
At six that evening I got a lucky break.
He headed downtown again and pulled into the parking lot of a Chinese restaurant. Once more I watched his confident walk as he headed for the doors. Brilliant white shirt, chinos, loafers, a sports jacket. He looked preppy yet cool, a difficult combination to pull off.
He was a damn good-looking guy. It was going to be a pity to do what I had to do.
I parked across the street and wandered over to the dim sum restaurant, peered in through the glass. The windows were steamed up, the early suppertime crowd already filling the place to capacity. Angry waiters shouted and shoved their way between the tables. In a moment I spotted DeVane, newly seated at a corner table, alone, with a magazine open in front of him.
I was about to turn away and resume my wait when I saw another solitary figure on the other side of the restaurant. A priest, complete with dog collar, steadily working his way through a
I parked up across the street and waited. The warm spring day was just the right side of comfortable for a stakeout. In the gardens off the street, kids played ball or chased pooches, sprinklers anointed lawns, neighbors chatted over the fence. It was the unlikeliest setting in which to expect to encounter a vampire.
Or, at least, the popular notion of what a vampire was.
Here’s the thing. Some of the myths about vampires are true. Others aren’t. Who knows how the false ones arose? Through imperfectly relayed folk tales down the generations, maybe. Or else vampires have evolved, becoming different creatures than the ones they were a few centuries ago.
They can survive in sunlight. We’ve covered that one already. They possess reflections, and they cast shadows. They’re not afraid to cross running water. (Where did that one come from?) They bleed.
People don’t get turned into vampires by being bitten by one, even repeatedly. Vampirism seems to be transmitted by infected blood, which means the vampire’s blood has to enter the victim’s bloodstream. This can happen by mistake, for example if the vampire has gum disease. More often, the vampire infects the victim deliberately, by tapping his own vein and applying his blood to an open wound of hers. Often, a vampire will stick to a regular food source, draining a little blood at a time from a single victim, enough to steadily weaken but not immediately kill the person. That’s what seemed to be happening with Letitia DeVane.
There are three more or less reliable ways of confirming somebody’s a vampire, in my experience. Short of actually being chomped by one of the bastards. I call these three ways Rafe’s Rules. There’s a hierarchy to them, based on how easy they are to implement. I intended to test Rule One, the easiest of them all, on Mr Oscar DeVane.
At a quarter of one, just as the heat was starting to stick my T-shirt to my skin, I saw movement on the driveway of the DeVane house. A black Camaro swung out onto the road, rather carelessly, I thought. Asshole. There were kids on the street. As the car passed me I saw him behind the wheel: DeVane, his suntan and slicked-back hair and mirror shades making him look like a movie-star mobster.
I fired up the VW and followed discreetly. It wasn’t hard to be unobtrusive; silver station wagons are a dime a dozen in soccer mom land. Once or twice I struggled to keep up, but I knew Columbus and its streets well, and I managed to stay on the Camaro’s tail.
I followed him all afternoon. During this time he went to a sports shop and bought fishing equipment, spent an hour or so in what must have been his downtown office, then headed back north to a golf course where he presumably played a few holes. I didn’t watch him doing it; I wasn’t interested. I just kept an eye on his car until he came out.
At six that evening I got a lucky break.
He headed downtown again and pulled into the parking lot of a Chinese restaurant. Once more I watched his confident walk as he headed for the doors. Brilliant white shirt, chinos, loafers, a sports jacket. He looked preppy yet cool, a difficult combination to pull off.
He was a damn good-looking guy. It was going to be a pity to do what I had to do.
I parked across the street and wandered over to the dim sum restaurant, peered in through the glass. The windows were steamed up, the early suppertime crowd already filling the place to capacity. Angry waiters shouted and shoved their way between the tables. In a moment I spotted DeVane, newly seated at a corner table, alone, with a magazine open in front of him.
I was about to turn away and resume my wait when I saw another solitary figure on the other side of the restaurant. A priest, complete with dog collar, steadily working his way through a
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