Page 4 of Sore Throat, Slight Fever

But that was thirty-years ago, before the weight of death sat so heavily upon him, before the bloodlust broke him in half and he fled. He traveled aimlessly for many years, denying himself his wants, reducing his diet to mere drops in hopes that he could rebuild his soul. It wasn’t until three years ago that he realized he would never be able to put his soul back togetheragain: it was gone, disintegrated into ash. He settled in Willow Park shortly thereafter. He spends his days in quiet, wretched contemplation and his nights working at the Go-Go Gas for a measly six dollars an hour to help keep the lights on in his house. His hands have been tarnished by spilled life from the day he was Turned; he supposes it was only a matter of time before he found himself with blood on his hands again.

Cleaning up the floor takes less time than he anticipates. His replacement shows up five minutes after he stores the mop in the supply closet. If she notes the strong, acrid smell of bleach, she doesn’t comment, allowing Rory to leave quickly.

He returns home just as the sun is creeping over the tops of the trees. He moves quickly, carrying the woman—Calliope, he reminds himself—into the house, cradled against his chest like a lover fallen asleep on the couch.

The curse of his blood is working its way through her body. Physically, she will remain in stasis as her cellular structure rewrites itself into something new. Some say that a vampire’s biology is more efficient than a human’s inner-workings, that vampires are the alchemized epitome of what existence should be. Rory isn’t sure of this, but his opinion on the matter doesn’t change the fact that itworks. After biting her neck, he dripped his own blood into her mouth, forcing the magic down into her throat, and he watched as her breathing stilled and her heartbeat quieted.

Soon, she will be neither living, nor dead. She will be a youngling vampire, a creature of pure instinct. The transition hits like adrenaline and only lets up after a few weeks of adjustment. Her emotions will be raw, untamed storms in her mind, erasing any amount of self-control and conscientiousness that she possessed before her transformation. Unless, of course, she is taught how to control her heightened strength and her unquenchable thirst.

So, Rory does what anyone would do in this situation: he chains her up in the basement.

The chains are iron, left over from the previous tenants of the house, but it’s not the material that matters most; it’s the symbols etched into the cuffs. He doesn’t know what they mean, though. He found the manacles in the spare room in a box labeledTo contain a vampyre or otherwise powerful immortal.The previous occupants of the house were witches, so he’s inclined to believe that they will work.

The symbols flare briefly when he clicks the manacles into place, leaving orange lines across his vision. He blinks the light away and tugs on the chain, satisfied that the cuffs are secure. He glances around the basement. The walls are solid stone, at least three feet deep. Even if the cuffs fail, she won’t be able to force her way out. There is perhaps a better way to do this, he knows. Something gentle with some hand holding and soft murmured explanations. A bedside vigil until she wakes up and he can explain. But he can hearher heartbeat slowing and soon, it will stop altogether. She will become conscious again, with sharp teeth and red eyes and an uncontrollable thirst for blood, and he still has to dispose of the other body, preferably before the sun gets too high in the sky.

For once, someone or something is on his side. Not God, per se, but perhaps a lesser deity—a good luck gremlin watching from the rafters—because she stays unconscious as he stands and backs away from her, taking the steps two at a time until he is back in the kitchen.

He begins to hammer a metal panel to the door frame and a matching one to the door itself, snaking an iron chain in between them. A similar symbol that adorns the cuffs is carved into the panel on the door and it flares into life when he clicks the lock into place.

There is a soft displacement of air just above his shoulder, a wayward wisp of his hair ticking the shell of his ear, and he feels the pinch of bird claws soon after as his housemate, Kane, lands on his shoulder.

“Are you sure you made the right decision?” asks Kane, a small squawk added on the end for punctuation.

Rory doesn’t need to see the bird to know that his oil-slick feathers are ruffled with disapproval. He stands and drops the hammer on the table with a loud thud. “It was that or kill her.”

“And what about the man in the trunk of your car?” asks Kane, nipping at Rory’s ear.

Rory, well-versed in Kane’s habits, doesn’t flinch, but he does give him a sideways look accompanied by a scowl. “That was necessary. Besides, he’s the one that shot her in the first place. If anything, I saved her.”

“Is that what we’re calling it, these days?”

Rory grunts in response, knowing that Kane doesn’t really want an answer to his question. They both know Rory’s justification is flimsy, yet neither of them wants to admit the glaringly obvious reason why Rory would spare her. Because how can a vampire explain that he’s sick of bloodshed, especially after he seemingly recklessly killed someone? Even that excuse feels paltry to him.

Then again, Kane has never been known to keep his opinions to himself. “You just thought she was pretty,” he says graciously, golden eyes flashing with amusement.

“Is she?” Rory asks, eyebrow raised. “I didn’t notice.” This is not entirely true of course. Hehadnoticed but it’s not the reason he bit her, and he’s sure Kane knows that. He can’t help but think that Kane is being oddly charitable.

Kane pushes away from Rory’s shoulder to land on the small kitchen table. His feet click against the wood. “What happens if she escapes and kills someone?”

“That’s what the chains are for,” says Rory, glancing out the window and to the lake beyond. The sun is just beginning to rise, and the placid surface ofGraeme Lake reflects the trees like a mirror. From the outside, the house on Graeme Lake is a three-story, three-bedroom Queen Anne Victorian cottage set upon the western shore.

A set of twelve or so stone-hewn steps extend from the back patio and reach down to the water, gently sloping earth on either side. The house is framed by gnarled, ancient oaks and tall, skinny pine trees. There is only one way on or off the property: a dusty dirt track that stretches through the trees to meet-up with the paved road that snakes its way around the nature reserve and out of Willow Park.

The house was commissioned by him sometime in the 1890s, though the exact date escapes him now. The lake was there at the time, but the name came much later; both the house and lake were namedGraeme, after the surname of the coven Matron who bought it from him in 1953.

Little has changed of its external appearance since then. With its wraparound porch and shingled turret still intact, the various peaks and points of the house are at once ostentatious and yet still modest in their lack of decoration, painted in muted teals and brick-reds.

Inside, however, the house seems to stretch beyond its physical construction, dimensions and measurements never quite adding up. By all accounts, there shouldn’t be a basement level—there wasn’t one when he sold it to the coven.

Of course, it wasn’t just the house he let go of at the time. He let go of everything—his family, his wealth, his home—as his choices left him with the gaping maw of guilt resting against his sternum. He’s spent decades running away from this deficiency, ignorant of its true meaning, only to realize that the emptiness could only be solved from within. That the pain inside of his heart could never be cured.

So, he stopped moving.

Rory purchased the house back three years ago from the last remaining member of the coven. The witches lived in it for all that time, infusing their magic, perhaps even inadvertently, with the very foundation of the cottage.It’s probably where the basement came from, he thinks.

He wishes they thought to add an air conditioning unit as he unbuttons the wrists of his flannel shirt to roll the sleeves up to his elbows, eyes still trained on the smooth surface of the lake. “Anything happen while I was gone?”

“A small disturbance,” replies Kane, hopping onto the windowsill. He taps the pane with his beak. “Whatever it is, it’s eating all the fish.”

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