Chapter Twenty-Nine – Sam

 

Believe it or not, there’s more than one type of creature that needs to sleep in the soil of the place where it once lived. Some theorize it’s because certain supernatural beings need it to maintain a connection to the world of the living, of the corporeal form. That they’re really just ghosts given physical form by random chance, or by tragic mistakes. Much in the same way that, sometimes, there are just bad places in the world, or someone buys their first PowerBall ticket and wins nearly a billion dollars.

One of those creatures that needs its soil is a certain kind of Polish vampire, an upier.

The best, and easiest, way to kill one is to go after the soil it uses to stay alive. Of course, the older the upier, the longer it can stay away from its soil. If Tanchovsky, or Ironside, or whatever his real name was, was more than a century old, he’d be able to go quite a while without taking a dip in the old soil bath. The newest ones, though, they need to be around it constantly, sometime for years on end. In the old legends, that’s part of the reason why the upier always returns to its home and kills the rest of its family. It’s hungry, because it’s young, and it can’t really go anywhere else.

“Know the movie Nosferatu?” I asked Faith as I led her back downstairs and, unfortunately, deeper into the house. “Or the original Dracula?”

“Y-y-yeah,” she said, confusion heavy in her voice.

The level of horror she’d felt at the sight of this place seemed to have faded away, and so too had the strange infatuation we’d had. Whatever the Hand of Fatima I’d given her had been protecting her from, it was gone now, and had stopped working its weird spell on both of us.

Maybe it had been our kiss? I don’t know. But that strange, dreamy quality had left her voice. And, for my part, I didn’t seem to have the willingness to just pointlessly explore and soak in the age of the place. Instead, I remembered fully what I was here to do: find whatever was terrorizing the town of Potterswell.

Why she’d been obsessed with his picture and documents, though, I had no idea. Maybe it had something to do with the contact he’d already made with her the night before, entering into her dreams like that? That kind of thing was more up Tabitha’s alley, anyways.

“Well, in those movies, the vampires don’t sparkle. And, in Nosferatu, they’re not even attractive. They’re hideous, deformed things. Almost like lepers, or dried-up old corpses of lepers. Nosferatu vampires, though, are based off upiers.”

“Is that what you think this Tanchovsky guy is?” she asked, clearly not believing any of this. “An upier?”

I nodded, squeezing her hand tightly as I led her to the back of the house, and into the abandoned kitchen. The whole way in here, I’d been checking every door possible, looking for an entrance down into the cellar. If Tanchovsky, or Augustus Ironside as he was known now, was using this place as a lair like I thought, he’d have his boxes of soil in the basement. Along with his other…castoffs.

“You see,” I explained as I checked another door, but found only a cobweb-draped pantry, “upiers aren’t like the vampires Hollywood has been feeding us for all these decades. Instead, they’re deformed, hideous creatures, who have to desperately try to cover their true natures up. With the way they look, they’d be hard pressed to ever get near enough to drink your blood. So they steal the skin of their victims, humans or animals, and wear it like a coat.”

I closed the door and turned back to her, but she was just staring at me, her mouth opening and closing like a fish.

“Ew. Sam? How do you know all this?”

“Well, I, um, study them.”

“But, you said you like history. Vampires aren’t history. They’re not even real.”

“You know, you were pretty comfortable with it being UFOs, a government conspiracy, or a cult just yesterday, if I remember correctly. Why would a vampire be so extraordinary compared to all that?”

“So, you’re saying they’re real? Really real?”

I nodded.

I could tell she was stuck on whether she should scream in terror, or laugh in hysteria. “You’re fucking with me, right?”

I shook my head. “Sorry, but…no.”

“You mean you want me to believe there are things out there that want to drink my blood? People, things, whatever, that burst into flames when the sun hits them, and can turn into bats? You sound like a fucking nut job. You know that, right?”

“Well, first of all, they don’t burst into flame when the sun hits them. Not upiers, at least. It’s more like it rots off their skin, so it comes off like a bad sunburn. And it’s really not their skin, either. That’s part of why they collect it from their victims. So, not all of them?” I stopped, snapped my fingers. “That's why I can't smell any difference here! Their skin masks the smell!”

She gave me a look like I was crazy. A look I ignored as I continued on. “And, no, none of them turn into bats. This one, I think, can turn into a black dog, or something like that. Tabitha’s really a lot better at the lore; she’d know for sure. But, a lot of these things that are old, really old, can do things you’d never imagine.”

“Tabitha?” she asked, her arms wrapped tightly around her as she walked to the kitchen counter and leaned back against it. She gave me a hard look. “Your editor?”

I pursed my lips a little, holding up a finger. “About that…there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you, and now’s as good of a time as any.”

“I knew it,” she said, shaking her head, disbelief mixed with disgust. “I just fucking knew it. You’re not a reporter, are you? You’ve been lying to me the whole time about this, haven’t you? About all of this?”

“No,” I said, then paused. I sighed, my hands balled up into fists at my sides. I tried to look her in the eye, but she was right. I had been lying to her. I don’t know why I’d kept up the charade for as long as I had. “No.”

“Oh my God,” she said. “You fucking kissed me upstairs, even while you were lying to me, lying to my face!”

I took a deep breath and went to reply, but thought better of it.

“You know what? I should’ve known the second you pulled that damn gun of yours at my work. I should’ve fucking called you on your shit then!”

“Look,” I said, “I know, I’ve been lying to you. And that was wrong. I know. Okay?”

She locked me with a steely gaze, but could only hold it for a moment. She turned her head, clearly disgusted with me.

“But,” I said, “and this is a big but, I was just doing it to try and protect you, okay? We’re not supposed to involve civilians, but I really needed to get in and see that pig so I could figure out what was doing this before anyone got hurt.”

She glanced back at me, but just long enough for me to feel the coldness of her glare.

Almost on cue, my phone buzzed in my pocket. I pulled it out, saw that it was a text from Tabitha.

“Who’s that?” Faith asked, her words thick with sarcasm. “Your editor?”

As I pulled up Tabitha’s text, I raised an eyebrow at Faith. I glanced over the short message.

“Missing persons reported, last known locations in Potterswell. Truckers, salesmen. Not just livestock anymore, it seems. Two that I can find, maybe more.”

“Shit,” I whispered, my chest feeling heavy and my shoulders already tightening up. “It’s getting worse.”

If I’d been faster, maybe this wouldn’t have happened. Maybe Tanchovsky wouldn’t have expanded beyond the immediate area.

“What?” Faith asked. “What’s wrong?”

“There are people going missing, now,” I said, my voice thick with regret. If I’d only been fast enough, the upier wouldn’t have expanded its territory. “First Eb’s pig, now this. People, Faith.”

She straightened up a little bit and shook her head. “You’re not the cops or something, are you? Why is it up to you to stop this thing?”

I stuffed my phone back in my pocket. “Because it just is. It’s what we do.”

Eyes hard, Faith opened her mouth and went to reply, but she closed her mouth with a click of teeth. She just shook her head and looked away, hugging herself tighter. “I still can’t believe you kissed me.”

Despite the gravity of the situation, I half-smiled. All things considered, it probably wasn’t the right thing to do. But screw it, it had been a good kiss. A real kiss. Strong enough to maybe even push away evil magics. That’s what makes a kiss, a kiss for the ages, in my opinion.

“But you’re a good kisser,” I said. “How could I resist?”

“Oh, shut up,” she grumbled, still looking away back down into the corner of the kitchen. Abruptly, though, she pushed off from the counter and went over to a spot on the floor. “Hey, Sam? Come here, real quick.”

“What?” I asked.

“I think I found something,” she said, waving me over.

I cocked my head to the side, went over and joined her. Standing that close, I could practically feel her heat through my light jacket, and had to fight the urge to wrap her up in my arms again. To crush her lips with mine.

There, on the floor in front of us, was a concealed hatch. Almost perfectly flush with the floor, with the only discerning marks being the way the grain of the old hardwood floors changed, the slightest of wear around the corners, and the fact that it had less dust than the surrounding area.

Faith pressed herself into my side, as if she was seeking security or reassurance. Maybe I hadn’t completely destroyed my chances with her, after all.

“That’s it,” she nearly whispered, “isn’t it?”

I nodded. “Yeah. I think so.”

“What’re we going to do?”

“We’re going to salt it. And then, we’re going to burn it. Fire cleanses everything.”

“Good,” she said. “I want to help. That bastard deserves everything coming to him for what he did to me.”

I put my arm around her, pulling her close to my side as she relaxed into my embrace. “Well,” I said, “we’re going to give it to him.”