David Wellington - 99 Coffins: A Historical Vampire Tale

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A rkeley moved slowly, one leg dragging behind the other. Caxton shuffled along behind him as respectfully as she could. Once he turned to glare back at her, but he said nothing. With a deep grunt he dropped to sit on the edge of a single bed and then ran his good hand over his face as if he were wiping away sweat.

How have you been? she asked. Hows your family? Have you seen them much lately? He had a wife and two children, she knew, though shed never met them. She believed he was estranged from his family, though not in any kind of dramatic way. He had just become so obsessed with his work that they had fallen by the wayside, immaterial to what he considered important.

Everyones fine. She expected him to say something more but he didnt.

She glanced around the room. Shed been trained to always make a note of her surroundings when she entered a new place, and though she didnt expect to find any criminals lurking in the corners, she did get a big surprise. The room was nice enough, a small double furnished tastefully though cheaply. There was a big television in a cabinet on one wall, an open closet with a pair of suits hanging from its rack. A door at the far end of the room led to a darkened bathroom. A thin muslin curtain had been drawn across the windows, leaving the room in semidarkness. Arkeleys suitcase stood open and mostly packed on the other bed. Beyond that bed, near the windows, two metal luggage stands had been erected. Balanced on top of them stood a simple wooden coffin.

Caxtons guts clenched at the sight of it. She had no doubt that it was occupied.

The coffin could belong only to one creature, the vampire who had destroyed Caxtons life and turned every one of her nights into a parade of nightmares. Justinia Malvern, a three-hundred-year-old monster with a pedigree of cunning and deceit.

Even a year later Caxton felt the urge to go over to the coffin, throw back the lid, and tear out Malverns heart. It was daytime, and she knew that if she did open the casket she would find little but bones and maggots in there. Even by night the vampire was a decrepit wreck, a rotten body with one eye and little else but a diabolical will to continue her blighted existence. Like all vampires she was immortal, but she required blood to maintain her bodily health. The older a vampire got the more blood they needed every night just to be able to walk. A long, long time ago Malvern had passed the point where she could hunt for herself, and now she was doomed to an eternity in her coffin, barely able to move at all. If she could get enough bloodand she would need gallons of it every nightshe could have revivified, but Arkeley had made sure that never happened.

Caxton walked over and set her hand on the coffin. The wood was cold as ice, and her skin prickled when it got too close. Malvern, like all vampires, was an unnatural freak, something that shouldnt exist. She warped reality around herself, and every living thing recognized the wrongness, the unclean nature of her. Maggots didnt seem to mind, but dogs and horses would go crazy if she came close to them. Caxtons urge to destroy her was a perfectly rational reaction. Yet if she did it, if she ended so much trouble then and there, she knew she would go to jail. Malvern was a mastermind of vampires, a schemer and conspirator, but she had never harmed an American citizen as far as anyone could prove. The courts had decided after long deliberation that she was still human and still deserving of the protection of the law. Arkeley had spent much of his adult life fighting that ruling and trying to get a warrant for her execution. He had so far failed at every turn.

Jesus, Caxton said. Youre traveling with her?

After the debacle at Arabella Furnace I decided I didnt trust her with anyone else. Arkeley nodded at the coffin and then at a laptop computer set on the nightstand next to it.

Caxton opened the lid of the laptop and watched the screen flicker to life. A mostly blank window opened, a document created by a word processor. Malvern was too far decayed to be able to talk or even gesture much, but she could hunt and peck on a computer keyboard, sometimes taking hours to tap out a few characters. If left alone all night with the computer sometimes she tried to communicate with the world outside her coffin. It was rare that she had anything worthwhile to saymostly she wasted her time on idle threats and dark imprecations. The message Caxton found on the screen was a little more cryptic than usual:

comformeh

Any idea what this means? Caxton asked Arkeley.

He shook his head. Its not any language I recognize. I think she may have reached the point where she cant even form words anymore and shes just stabbing at random keys.

Caxton shoved her hands back in her pockets. She felt vaguely ill, as if the air in the room had been tainted.

She turned to look at him with sad eyes. She expected to find him combative and scolding, but instead he took her glance as a spur to action. He straightened up and his eyes positively glowed. He fastened the top button of his shirt with one hand and struggled into a jacket. Then he scuttled up off the bed and took a pair of black leather gloves from out of his suitcase. With his good hand and then with his teeth he pulled them on. One glove covered the lump of flesh at the end of his left arm. The fingers of that glove splayed out pointlessly, but at least they looked somewhat normal.

Why didnt you get a prosthetic? she asked.

Too much nerve damage. Now, if youre done playing nurse, we need to get started, he told her. Theres much work to be done and weve already wasted two crucial days because apparently you dont check your email anymore. I need you to call your captain and tell him youll be working on a new case for an indefinite time period. Im sure theyll understand in Harrisburg and if they dont, I really dont care. I still have enough clout to get you reassigned as necessary.

No, she said.

He stared at her, his eyes frozen and unblinking. No, he repeated. Thats not acceptable.

I helped you once. I was nearly killed. People I cared about werekilled. She closed her eyes and let a wave of grief pass through her. When it had receded she looked at him again. That ought to be enough.

Its never over, he told her.

No? We killed all the vampires. Except her, of course. Ive moved on. Ive got a real job, doing real police work now.

And how is that working out? he asked. I was a real cop once, youll remember. I know what thats like. Its pointless. You chase around the same criminals you chased around the year before. You put them away for a while and then they get out and they repeat the same squalid little crimes. This is different. Its far more important.

Arkeleys life had been taken over by the vampires. Every minute of his day he spent thinking about them, planning their destruction. She couldnt let herself get sucked in like that. What I do is important, too, she said. She didnt want to go into the details. She didnt want to say what she was really thinking. Her first raid might not have gone how shed hoped, but she had survived it. When she was down and hurt people had worked to save her. He would never have dragged her out of the line of fire, she knew. He would have pushed her further into danger. Was her resistance to his plea based solely on fear? Was she fighting him just because she didnt want to get killed? She said, half trying to convince herself, I protect the people of this state. Im working drug law enforcement right now, keeping methamphetamines away from schoolkids.

He shook his head. Forget about that. When you hear what Ive found youll