Lifeblood - Chapter Four

[kalinara]

So last time, plot ensued, and Jack ran into some dubiously competent vampire hunters while on his way to Cincinnati. They seem to have a pretty good idea of who he is, to boot.



So we rejoin Jack as he reaches Cincinnati with some time to spare. He checks into a big, busy hotel under a phony name and his car is safe and anonymous in the parking lot. He gets a bath, shave, and nice trunk-nap.

The next night, he heads out to the farm. It looks like it did in the first book: forlorn, overgrown, but not completely neglected. The grass in the graveyard is trimmed. The house is boarded up, but has a paint job. So Jack starts getting his dirt, being careful to avoid earthworms, which I feel. I hate those things.

So he digs, and thinks about his route back, and the annoying vampire hunters. He doesn't really know what he can do about them until he gets their names to Escott. I mean, you could eat them? I know, I know, you're not like that.

But seriously, you could.

He's interrupted when hit in the chest and head with some very large rocks. Fortunately, vampire, so he goes all misty as opposed to gets concussed or murdered. He does however float upward a bit high, which is annoying, because Jack doesn't like heights.

I still find the idea of a vampire that hates heights very amusing. He hides in a tree.

While hiding in the tree and counting my blessings, developments were taking place below. Three foreshortened figures came into view and prowled uncertainly around my excavation. They were rough-looking men, each with a rock in one hand and a big stick in the other. Had I not vanished immediately they would have probably followed up with those clubs. The clubs were of wood and would have succeeded where rock had failed.

So Jack decides to eavesdrop on these guys. They're looking for him, of course, thinking Jack must have rolled away fast. They wonder what Jack was digging for and they go to check his car for useful items. Jack figures they're fugitives "from a local Hooverville" (I had to look that up. It's a Depression era shanty town), or tramps from one of the trains passing through. Jack was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Jack realizes he left the keys in the car (he feels safe back home. Oops) so he mist forms over and knocks poor Bob the drifter out. Jack notes how gaunt the guy is and thinks that he'd feel sorry for the guy, if not for the murder attempt.

He ends up picking off the others one by one, knocking them out and finally isolates the leader, Rich. He learns that they've been here a couple of days and there's a sign on the mailbox that indicates that this is a safe place for drifters. Jack has him get rid of the symbol and replace it with one that says "keep away." Jack mind-whammies him some "advice" and sends him to go running off to Cleveland.

Jack goes through the house and barn and gets offended by the signs of recent occupancy. I mean, they are homeless dude, and your family isn't exactly using the property. But then they did try to murder you, so I guess I can forgive some ill feeling.

Eventually Jack rouses the others and snaps their clubs in front of them, impressing them and scaring them off. Then he goes back to his digging, which takes a very long time. He realizes there isn't really enough time to get back to Chicago. He finds a phone at a gas station and, pretending to be a farm neighbor, reports the intruders on the Fleming farm.

Then he decides on another errand:

Having the time and inclination, I decided to indulge in some nostalgia and drive through my old neighborhood. I needed some reassurance that the haunts of my youth were still there, still in use by another generation of kids.

I wasn’t going to visit my parents, only look at the house and drive on. Visiting them would have been too complicated and painful. I’d be expected to stay the night and stuff myself with food and there was no way I could fob them off with some light excuse. I could also be honest and tell them the truth about myself and hope they’d understand and accept it, but that was something I absolutely was not ready to try yet.

Aw, Jack. Tell your folks.

As he drives by though, he spots a very familiar black Lincoln in front of his parents house. Oh, that's...less good. Fortunately, Jack's got the best skills for Eavesdropping.

Basically, Braxton is lying his ass off. He tells them that Jack got himself into trouble when he moved to Chicago (...okay, that part's true) and that he works for the government and needs their help in order to contact Jack.

Jack's dad is endearingly skeptical about all this. He apparently has a lot of experience with salesmen and he doesn't think these clowns look like G-men. Braxton suggests that he may come to town to hide out, and Jack's mom suggests the farm. Jack doesn't particularly like this conversation, so he throws a rock through the window.

He does feel guilty about scaring his mom by doing that. He also goes to the Lincoln, releases the handbrake and pushes the car away. When the parents are no longer in earshot, Jack confronts them. A bit more violently this time. He gets Braxton by the neck and orders Matheus to drive. He drives them out of town and ditches them, taking the car back. He parks it near a fire station and reclaims is own car.

Then he finds another telephone and calls his parents, playing ignorant. When his parents explain about their government visitors, Jack gives them a little bullshit back: he claims they're conmen who got sent up after one of Jack's articles got them in trouble. The rock is from the 'third man' on their team, and they'll probably be back to sell some phone insurance.

Jack claims to be a lousy liar, but he's doing very well here. His dad believes him. Jack also said he called because he's moved and wants to give them a new number: Escott's. He'll be getting a PO Box because the landlord steams open mail. (Jack's Dad protests that that's illegal, but Jack says the rent's cheap and the food is good.)

Anyway, he talks to his mom too, and it pretty much just makes his day. Aw.

Then we go into a flashback of sorts. Jack remembers being in Manhattan and going to a small bookstore, called "Braxton's Books". He's looking for a copy of Varney, the Vampire. (Jack's own research seems to have gone past Dracula. But give Bobbi and Escott time.) The shopowner is a pretty nice guy and while he doesn't have a copy for sale, he does have a personal copy and he's okay with Jack reading it in the shop.

It actually sounds like a really nice shop! You should go back to it, Braxton!

Jack gives us a bit of backstory on Varney (namely that it was published a chapter at a time for weekly consumption) and his running review is pretty entertaining. He reads what he needs to, has another pleasant conversation with the shopkeeper (...who also has a copy of the Necronomicon for some reason?!).

Eventually the conversation goes to whether or not Jack himself believes in vampires. Jack gets a little uneasy with the guy's focus, so he sidesteps, saying he's read about Elizabeth Bathory and the like, but that he doesn't believe in Dracula-type vampires. Braxton presses Jack about his disbelief in supernatural vampires in such a way that it actually makes me wonder if he intended to recruit Jack like he did Matheus.

He does give a pretty great speech here though:

His expression was still disturbing. “But tell me, Mr. Fleming, and with all truth, what would it mean if there are such things? What would it mean to you?”

“I’d have to think that one over.”

“I already have. I’ve thought a lot about it. We have this bright world of daylight, predictable and comfortable to us. Normal. But what do we do when something happens that simply does not fit into that world and makes us conscious of another world altogether, existing and blending closely with our own? A world we can but glimpse and then dismiss as a fantasy, a world we cannot sanely accept, for that would doom our complacent security. Its citizens are beautiful monsters, to be feared or laughed at as at a dream. But if their reality were to be proved to you, how would you react? You can deny it or accept the truth. One keeps your illusion of your world safe and the other… well, your hand might hesitate tonight before it turns out the light. How can you slumber in peace when you cannot see what the darkness conceals? Our eyes blink against it, our ears hear things that might be moving, our skin shivers and anticipates crawling things beneath the covers. Within that dark, which is as sunlight to them, they watch and bide their time until sleep takes you; they sense it as we sense the heat and cold. They approach, marking you, stealing your heart’s essence to strengthen their own Undead bodies, and when the dawn comes they’re gone… and one more part of your soul is gone with them.”

So Jack's really fucking creeped out now. This guy knows too much and not enough. He's pegged Jack as having other reasons rather than research for reading the book, though, and that's a little dangerous.

Jack politely skips out and finds himself thinking about Braxton vs. Maureen:

Social conventions sometimes come in handy. We smiled, said the usual things, performed the expected rituals, and pretended all was right in the world. It was for me as soon as I stepped out into the brisk March dusk to walk home. Braxton’s outlook on reality was enough to throw anyone off center. If nothing else, he personified my own fears of vampirism and made me realize how groundless they were. Compared to Maureen, Braxton was far more frightening.

The relationship Maureen and I shared was hardly consistent with the popular image of vampire and victim. Our love-making was astonishingly joyous and normal, and if at its climax she drew a little blood from me what did it matter as long as we both enjoyed it? Maybe she wasn’t a typical vampire, maybe there were others just as dangerous as Stoker’s creation. I did not know.

Jack never mentioned Braxton to Maureen, and after a while, he'd forgotten about him entirely.

Oops. And with that slightly disturbing flashback, the chapter ends.