Deep Midnight

Ragnor looked at her seriously. “We do like our meat rare.”



“How have you managed ... the?er?kind of sustenance you do need?” she asked awkwardly.



“We often pay visits to the local blood banks,” Lucian said. “And animal blood will suffice.”



“Human is better,” Ragnor said flatly.



“Are you trying to make me more nervous?” she asked him.



He leaned close to her. “If I intended to take your blood, Jordan, I could have done so many times before now.”



“She’s not a very trusting soul, is she?” Lucian inquired.



“Oh, and I should be?”



Ragnor shrugged. “Left corner table,” he said to Lucian and Sean.



Jordan started to move her chair back. “No,” Ragnor warned her softly.



“What are you telling them?” she demanded.



“We’re just keeping an eye out.”



“For?”



“Hey!” Sean said. “I’m a cop. My eyes are always open.”



None of them explained any further. Lucian asked for the check and paid it. It was time to leave.



When they reached the cemetery, Sean drove the rental car deep into a grove of trees by the side of the very old burial ground.



“We’ll have the gate open in a minute,” Ragnor told them. He and Lucian started walking toward the entry. They disappeared into the darkness. A moment later, Sean and Jordan heard the creaking of the old gate.



Sean carried a duffel bag with him as they started in.



“What if the Charleston cops showup here?” Jordan demanded.



“We’ll be done before anyone shows,” Sean assured her. “Let’s go.” Inside the now open ten foot gates, Ragnor and Lucian were waiting for them. As so often occurred at night in the outlands of Charleston, fog sat low on the ground. For a moment, Jordan closed her eyes, thinking of the insanity of what she was doing. On a dark and foggy night, she was wandering around a cemetery with a very strange cop and two self-proclaimed vampires.



Fog drifted around sculpted burial figures. Cherubs rose above many graves; Madonnas, heads bowed in prayer over folded hands, graced others.



The fog seemed to swirl with a life of its own. Jordan tripped over a broken old stone as they hurried off the path. Ragnor caught her arm, righting her.



“Steven is?just ahead,” she told them.



He was buried in an open area between two pre-Civil War private mausoleums. She pointed out the grave.



The stone was black marble, making it hard to read the inscription in the darkness, but Lucian and Ragnor seemed to have no problem with night vision.



They paused for just a moment. Jordan remembered the day when she had stood here and listened to the prayers as Steven had been interred.



It had rained.



The sky had been a leaden gray. She had felt as if they were burying her heart.



Now she was allowing people to dig him up.



There would be no way to stop them, she knew.



Sean carried three spades in the duffel bag. He took them out, and the three men started digging. Jordan watched, standing just a few feet back, amazed at the speed with which the men could move the dirt.



She swallowed hard, feeling the mist swirl around her. She closed her eyes, imagining them bringing up the coffin. It was sealed in lead. She didn’t know what device Sean had brought for that, or how he’d managed to get this luggage on the plane, but she was sure it had to do with the ‘last-minute arrangements’ they had made at the airport.



Soon they would reach the coffin. She was afraid it would be like the old Hammer films she watched on the Movie Channel. They would open it up; there would be a horrible creaking sound. And there would be Steven, restored to health and splendor, sleeping with his arms crossed over his chest. And he would open his eyes, but she wouldn’t see Steven’s eyes, she would see the red glowing orbs of a demon ...



“We’re down to the vault,” Ragnor said to Sean.



Sean crawled out of the hole and saw Jordan’s pale face. “It’s almost over.” He had some kind of a battery-operated welding gun in the bag. He grabbed it and dropped back into the hole. Jordan heard the hoot of an owl and clenched her teeth, looking around the graveyard.



She stared back at the hole, seeing the sparks that created an eerie red glow within. Then, as she watched and listened to the drone of the gun, she had the feeling that someone was behind her.



She turned. There was someone there. A young man in tattered jeans and a worn Grateful Dead T-shirt.



His hair was long and greasy; he looked as if he’d been on his way to a street fight. She didn’t scream; she just stared at him in surprise.



Then he smiled. She saw the fangs of her dreams. In life, the youth hadn’t kept up his teeth. They were marred and yellowed, and even the glistening fangs seemed almost green.



She opened her mouth. At first, no sound came. Then she managed to scream while reaching into her purse for the holy water.



She threw it at him, doubting her ability to do harm.



To her amazement, he screamed, louder than she. It might have been acid that she had thrown at him, the way he clutched his face, backing away. She heard a sizzling sound... saw flesh on his face began to decompose ...



He wasn’t alone. A foul-looking young woman with spiked hair came running up from behind him, as if she were a frenzied animal. Jordan tossed more water from her Venetian vial. It was not enough, for the girl was still coming.



Before she could reach Jordan, a black shadow seemed to fall before her. Jordan saw Ragnor’s bulk take shape. He swung a fist, knocking the girl from her intent, sending her flying back against a tree. The youth remained on the ground, rolling in pain. The girl sat stunned, slumped against the tree for one moment; then she rose again, as insanely as a rabid dog, and came running forward.



By then, Ragnor had taken up a discarded spade. He swung as she ran. Jordan cried out with a sick sound as she heard the spade strike against the girl’s throat. She turned away, knowing that the head was flying free from the body.



Lucian, too, had come from the grave. He walked over to the rolling youth. Jordan turned away, not wanting to see the end.



“There’s one more coming,” Lucian said, walking back to Ragnor.



“The businessman from the restaurant,” Ragnor said. He inclined his head toward Jordan. “I think that Buffy the Vampire Slayer here is out of holy water.”



Sean nodded, taking a stance by the grave. The other two slipped back in. A moment later, she heard a groaning, like nails pulling hard against a board. They had the leaden sarcophagus off. Then she heard the wrenching of wood.



Then . ..



Silence.



“What is it?” Jordan demanded tersely.



Sean Canady walked around the grave, leading her carefully. Ragnor had a flashlight in the hole.



He shone it into the coffin.



Jordan nearly retched. There was a body in the coffin. Burned and decomposed. Hair gone; features hardly recognizable as human.



“I told you!” she breathed. “I told you!” She backed away. “Put the cover back; fix the lead shield. For the love of God, let him rest in peace!” She turned, ready to walk away from the coffin. She stopped instantly.



There was a man in front of her now, in a business suit. Pleasant looking. Dusty blond hair, nice eyes, easy smile.



Except that he smiled with long teeth. “Come!” he said softly.



Ragnor rose from the grave; floated from it, as if he were on an invisible elevator platform. Jordan realized she was suddenly more afraid of him than of the strange businessman.



“Come with me,” the man beckoned again. “This man doesn’t know what a woman is for. I can show you.”



Ragnor stepped forward. Jordan turned away, covered her ears with her hands. Sean came to her, holding her against his chest.



“A lot to take in, huh?” he asked her.



“Please ... let’s finish and get out of here.”



Later, in the car on the way to the airport, she asked, “What about the people we’ve now left in the graveyard? And the freshly dug earth around Steven’s remains?”



“The police will have a bad time with that,” Sean mused.



“That’s it... ?” Jordan said.



“There was nothing else we could do tonight,” Ragnor said.



Jordan had chosen not to sit by him. She was in the front with Sean, who drove. “What do you make of our visitors?” Lucian asked Ragnor.



“Rank amateurs,” Ragnor murmured.



“I agree.”



“I think they were sent to delay us, no more. Or make us believe we weren’t up against much power or strength.”



“Those young people were someone’s children,” Jordan said.



“They had lost their children already,” Sean told her quietly. He looked her way. “Maybe that will help you understand. This has to be stopped.”



Ragnor touched her shoulder. “You are handy with a vial of holy water. And it will work against enemies such as those. But you should know as well, seawater is deadly.”



“Seawater?”



“Seawater. It’s absolutely deadly. To all of us. And Venice is full of canals. Remember that, if...” The ‘if’ scared her. As traumatized as she had been, she realized that she was suddenly afraid for him rather than of him.



At a gas station outside the airport, they cleaned up. They arrived in plenty of time to board early, and Jordan realized that whoever had put out the money for the tickets must have some real income.



Last minute, first class tickets. The plane was a 777. Jordan felt almost as unreal boarding the plane calmly with them as she had felt standing in the cemetery.



She found herself taking the seat beside Ragnor. She indulged in champagne.



He read a magazine. U.S. News and World Report.



Somewhere over the Atlantic, she knew that she was tired enough to sleep. But before she extended her nearly horizontal seat, she turned to him, studying his features again.



“Do you believe that I lived before?” she asked him.



“I never gave it any thought. Why?”