Death of an Immortal by Duncan McGeary Page B

on them last, since people were bound to notice the disappearance of a blog. Then again, maybe not. Out of curiosity, he’d looked them up online, and while the blog had started out strong and enthusiastic, it was petering out with each wearying mile. They’d already spent most of their reserves, and they had the whole second leg of the trip to go. Horsham smelled defeat.
    “Hi,” he said, friendly, but not too friendly. He couldn’t invite them in. Pieces of the driver, Shepard, were still scattered around the floor. Fortunately, he hadn’t begun to stink yet.
    “Have you seen Brenda and Dave?” Peggy asked. “We were going to go to a movie.”
    “No, haven’t seen them. Can’t have gone far.”
    Brenda and Dave were tied up and unconscious on the lower tier of Horsham’s bunk bed. He planned to feed on them before heading out after dark.
    “Weird,” Bill said. “They usually take their RV when they go anywhere. Well, if you see them, let them know we were looking for them.”
    “You bet,” Horsham said. He’d automatically picked up the American accent and idioms, and now sounded like he was from the Midwest somewhere. Such mimicking was a talent most successful vampires had. They blended in innocuously or they were discovered: there wasn’t much in between. Horsham was wearing Shepard’s clothes, cheap duds that had probably been bought right there at Walmart, rather than his own tailored outfit.
    He closed the door and went back to his laptop. He’d been online all day with his computer experts back in London, asking them to do a search of all major financial transactions in Bend. He’d also had them hack into the local police database.
    It appeared that Terrill was already on the run. A search warrant had been served on the motel room where he’d been staying. Apparently, from the police chatter, some damning evidence was found. They were looking for his car.
    That was inconvenient. Horsham didn’t want Terrill found by the police first. Then again, as crazy as Terrill had been acting, he was probably still capable of outfoxing the local constabulary. And the pressure was useful. It would force Terrill into the open.
    Horsham had tried to put himself in his old mentor’s place. Why was he here? What was he hoping to accomplish?
    It had to do with the dead girl. Terrill had managed not to feed on humans for a couple of decades. Undoubtedly, he was feeling remorse, just like the last time Horsham had seen him.
     
    #
     
    One in a thousand victims of vampires became vampires themselves. There was no way of knowing in advance if it would happen. It almost wasn’t worth worrying about. Most vampires feasted on their victims, ensuring there would be no reanimation. Occasionally, they’d leave a corpse undisturbed to see if it would Turn, out of curiosity, or loneliness, or because they somehow felt sympathetic toward their victim. Almost all these corpses remained cold. Wasted meat.
    Mary was still in her wedding dress, but it had changed in color from virgin white to blood red. She looked peaceful, only a couple of punctures in her neck, almost delicately placed to do the least damage possible.
    “I couldn’t let you go through with it,” Terrill was saying. “I’m sorry.”
    Horsham fell to his knees beside her. The anger didn’t come at first. The thirst for revenge that would sustain the rest of his existence was still buried under the numb realization that she was gone.
    He even let Terrill rest a hand comfortingly on his shoulder. She had died, and somehow Horsham still hadn’t made the emotional connection about who had killed her.
    “If she is meant for you, she’ll come back,” Terrill said. “I couldn’t let you marry a human, Horsham. Never trust a human.”
    The old rule barely penetrated Horsham’s consciousness. He’d heard it a million times, and yet somehow he’d never thought it applied to him. It never applied to Mary.
    He had revealed himself to her only the week