Page 13 of Sore Throat, Slight Fever

The first time Martha said this to him, he found himself folding his arms across his chest in a vain effort to hide his bulk. His height and his breadth were both sore points for him as a child and continued to be so even after he was Turned. He’s well aware that he is not as slim and attractive as most of his kind, and while he’s since come to terms with his own physical failings, he is still aware of his body and the space he takes up.

Martha’s comments bordered on farce, however, and with the slight twinkle of amusement in her eyes, he quickly learned that Martha’s worry is closer to genuine affection, though tempered with a surprisingly wry sense of humor. So, he indulges in the scripted performance, taking mild comfort in the motherly undertone of her concern. The brownies do smell wonderful though and if he could consume anything other than blood, he would happily sit down at the kitchen table and let her mother him into a meal.

Martha leads him down a narrow hallway, floral wallpaper dotted with family photos, to the kitchen, where the brownies sit enticingly on the stove, rapidly cooling in the air conditioning.

Martha’s husband, Bill, stands off to the side, phone handset cradled between ear and shoulder as he makes notes on a roll of paper affixed to the wall. Bill,of course, isn’t a Clayton. He married into the family two decades ago and although Martha took his last name of Danes, everyone still thinks of Martha as a Clayton, Rory included. It helps, too, that the name of the farm has become too iconic to change. The Danes Farm just doesn’t have quite the same ring to it.

Bill is as tall as Rory, though they are opposites in almost every other aspect of their appearances. Whereas Rory is brawny and heavy, Bill is long-limbed and slim. His hair is russet colored, cut short on the sides and slicked back with Brylcreem. He’s older than Martha, with fine wrinkles lining his smooth, shaven face and his closet seems to only hold plaid shirts and dark wash jeans, as Rory has never seen him wear anything else.

Martha moves around Bill, slipping under the tangled phone cord with ease so that she can stir something simmering on the stove. Bill’s mouth quirks up in a tender smirk, his hand absentmindedly pressing against the small of her back as she passes him.

Rory watches the interaction with a faint pang in his chest, an almost-jealousy that’s lingered in his heart for centuries. He hasn’t felt that comfortable with another person in a very long time and while he would never begrudge anyone their happiness, he aches for companionship again.

Then again, the last time he was in a romantic relationship, several people died.

So, he averts his gaze, waiting patiently while Billtalks into the phone. Beyond the kitchen window, he sees the youngest Danes, Elijah, leaning over the hood of a tractor. Rory’s only spoken to Elijah once since he started coming to the Clayton Farm; every other time he’s seen him, his head has been bent over an engine.

Bill hangs up the phone and turns to Rory with a smile. “Sorry to keep you waiting. The usual?” He grabs an invoice from the stack on the counter and a pencil and begins to write.

Rory nods. “I was hoping I could have a little more this time. If it’s not too much trouble.”

He doesn’t miss the shared look between Martha and Bill.This is a mistake, he thinks. The Claytons may be willing to accommodate one vampire, but two? What if they find out that he Turned her himself? What if they start asking questions? Would they report him to the police?

“Might take a day or two to draw that much without hurting the calves,” says Bill, filling in the invoice with well-practiced strokes. He glances up at Rory. “Do you mind some goat?”

The clenched feeling of panic lessens its hold on his chest. “Whatever you got. I have—a friend—visiting. Just for a week or two.”

Bill smiles amiably as he erases the quantity and updates the total. “How’s the fish biting these days?”

It takes Rory a second to realize that Bill is referring to Graeme Lake; he has the vaguest recollection that they once talked about fishing when Rory firstmoved back. “Alright, I guess. I don’t fish much these days,” he says blandly.

“Elijah was out at Baldwin Lake the other day.” Bill looks up from the invoice. “Said there were no fish. Gotta be this heat. Nothing can live in it.”

“Yeah, must be it,” he agrees, but he can’t help but think about the dark shadow at the bottom of Graeme Lake and Kane saying, “It’s eating all the fish.”

Bill completes the invoice and rips off the top copy to hand to Rory, keeping the yellow copy underneath for his records. “I can get Elijah to deliver it when it’s ready. Maybe the day after tomorrow?”

Rory is counting out the cash, but freezes at the thought of young Elijah, with his lanky body and thin, fragile neck knocking on the door, only to have Calliope answer. “Ah, that’s alright, don’t want to be a bother.” He hands the payment to Bill. “Especially since it’s already a large order. Just give me a call and I can come grab it.”

Bill shrugs, but agrees, slipping the cash in his back pocket. “Can do.”

Rory nods goodbye, returning Martha’s smile as best as he can, and begins to make his way back down the hall. Before he leaves, he sees Bill’s efforts to procure a brownie thwarted by a damp kitchen towel against the back of his hand. Martha scowls at her husband but he just presses a kiss to the top of her head with a light huff. That pang twinges again, like a stake is lodged in his chest.

Much like a vampire’s immortality, utility bills are unceasing. The unprepossessing slips of paper began to arrive a month after he moved back to Willow Lake. Cut off from his familial wealth and having spent the last of what little money he had on the house, when that first envelope showed up, he ignored it.

He ignored the second one, too. And then the third. It wasn’t until he was plunged in darkness, the ceiling fan slowly spinning to a stop, that he admitted he might need to pay attention to the bills markedWillow Lake Energy – Past Due.

The job at the Go-Go Gas Station was listed in the local newspaper and he accepted the night shift readily. The owner of the convenience store didn’t question his willingness to take the shift that no one ever wanted to work, for which Rory was grateful. No need to explain that he prefers the night shift because it doesn’t bring him into contact with too many people. No need to justify that he wants a paycheck but without any substantial amount of responsibility.

The Go-Go is a concrete box, plopped down unceremoniously on the side of the road, almost alarming with its bland modernism compared to the twisted, wild trees that sit on either side of the roadway. The bramble bush encroaching upon the concrete does somewhat soften the man-made aura of the buildingthough, turning the cool steel gray into a wild thing itself, particularly in the descending darkness, a skulking beast waiting to gobble up unsuspecting travelers.

Not that many people pass through these days, which, again, is why Rory likes it. He prefers the mundanity of it all, his nights broken only by the soft punctuation of the bell over the door as the occasional truck driver stops in for a pack of cigarettes. Even more rarely, though not unheard of, a group of kids will stop in for a six pack before they head to an illegal party in the woods. He wonders if Kid had ever stopped in. Did he sell him a pack of cigarettes once? An extra-large blue raspberry slushie and a pack of gummy worms would be more likely.

The lights buzz in the silence, and the smell of Calliope’s blood lingers annoyingly in the air. He tries to distract himself by doing inventory, counting boxes of cigarettes and trying not to remember the pool of blood that graced the floor the night before. He cleaned it up well enough, but he can almost see it still, a red tinge to the yellowed linoleum. It means his thoughts keep circling back to Calliope, no matter how many cigarette boxes he counts.

Rory has never been overly concerned with the biological inner-working of his kind, but even he is aware that not all vampires are the same; the magic does create small variations that account for attributes such as fang variation or increased sun-tolerance. He knows that’s what Kane was hinting at when he said that theTurn is complicated and that not everyone reacts the same to the magic.

But what Rory had been unable to voice earlier, in response to Kane’s disinterested assertion, is that there are still some fundamental truths—absolutes—that make a vampire avampire.

---