“I liked it. I liked it a lot.” Raleigh looked down at her hands. Under the table her feet were swinging back and forth. “I did it more than a couple of times. We didn’t have any money, I said that before. We couldn’t afford to buy drugs and pay the rent, so something had to happen. Jane convinced me we should cash in our plane tickets. We would explain to our parents that we needed the money for rent, and then they would send us new tickets. Except we didn’t want to go home anymore. The college called and said that if we didn’t come home we could get expelled. There was this funny thing that happened, it was like I knew that things were going bad. I knew it, but I couldn’t do anything about it. When I was high it didn’t matter, and when I came down I just felt like I couldn’t concentrate enough to do what I needed to do. We got kicked out of the apartment because we never did pay the rent, and we went to live with Piet. And his friends.”
“What did you do for money then?”
Raleigh looked up across the table and stared directly at Caxton. “I don’t want to say. Not when I’m being recorded.”
“Okay,” Caxton said. She didn’t think she wanted the sordid details anyway.
“You asked me about the last time I saw my dad. I’m sorry. I’ve been rambling. The answer is I saw him about six months ago. He knew something was up when I didn’t come home. He went to Vesta Polder and asked her to take a look, to see where I was. She can do that sort of thing. Anyway, she came back to him and said she’d found where my body was, but that she couldn’t see my soul anywhere.” The girl’s voice rose in pitch as she finished her story. “Daddy came for me. He showed up and he hurt some people. Some of Piet’s friends. I called him so many bad names, I said such mean things, but he didn’t even listen to me. He dragged me out of there and got me on a plane. We sat next to each other the whole way back. I got sick, really sick. I threw up a lot. He held my hair back but he wouldn’t talk to me. Not while I was like that. He told everybody I was just airsick. When we got home he brought me right here. He couldn’t come in through the gate, but Sister Margot took one look at me and just brought me inside. They locked me up for a couple of days, and when I finally came out of my room they were just waiting with this ugly set of clothes. They said if I wanted to stay here I had to dress like everybody else. I put the clothes on, because I needed something. I needed something to replace the heroin. I had no idea what I was getting into. I can’t tell you how scared I was. Now everything’s different.”
“How did your father know to bring you here?”
“Vesta recommended it as a place where I could get clean again. It’s really special here. You should spend some time with us.”
“I’d like that,” Caxton lied. “So this all happened six months ago.” The summer of 2004, then. Just a few months before the massacre at Gettysburg. He’d never told Caxton about what had happened, not even a hint. That wasn’t surprising, though, if you knew Jameson Arkeley at all.
“He saved me,” Raleigh said, sitting back in her chair. She looked spent, as if the effort of telling the story had taken something out of her. “He saved my life. And my soul.” She shook her head. “I heard what he did to Uncle Angus. So horrible. I’m doing a three-?week fast in his honor.”
“That’s…nice of you,” Caxton said.
“He’s not my father anymore. He’s not the same person anymore, is he?”
“Your poor mother didn’t think so,” Caxton agreed.
“My poor mother? What do you mean?”
Caxton’s heart jumped in her chest. Raleigh didn’t know. “I’m so sorry. I assumed the Bellefonte police would have contacted you. I guess maybe they didn’t know where you were.” She wondered if she should reach a hand across the table, to comfort the girl, but she didn’t. “Last night your father killed her. Exactly the same way he did your uncle. I’m—I’m sorry.”
Raleigh started to scream.
Vampire Zero
Chapter 27.
Sister Margot threw the door open and grabbed Caxton’s arm and pulled her bodily out of her chair. Caxton didn’t fight back but let the nun drag her out into the hallway. She didn’t want to find out what Margot was capable of when excited.
Margot’s face was wracked with pure anger, her delicate features twisted around and darkened by congested blood. Her eyes were narrow slits pulsing with rage, and spit flecked her lips. She looked as if she was about to invoke some dread curse. Then she looked toward the open door, looked in at where Raleigh was crying with her head in her hands. Visibly struggling to regain her composure, Margot closed her eyes and then said, in a sweet, soft voice, “Is everything alright?”
Caxton frowned. “I had to give her some bad news. Her mother died last night.”
A vein in Margot’s left temple throbbed alarmingly. “Yes,” she said. “I know.”
“You do?” Caxton was confused.
“The police called me last night, and when I said they couldn’t talk to her, they told me what it was about. I decided, after long contemplation, that it would be best for Raleigh to not be exposed to such negative outside influences.”
“Do you think that’s fair to her?” Caxton asked.
Sister Margot lowered her eyes. “She’s undergoing extensive therapy for drug addiction, and that takes a great deal of time, rest, and peace. The first time, when they came to tell her about her uncle, I allowed her to go to the gate and hear the news herself. She came back quite disturbed. I would have told her about her mother eventually, of course, but I decided that two such shocks in such a short space of time would completely unhinge her.”