Page 72 of Immortal By Morning
When Abril just gaped at the woman, Crispin carried on with the tale, now eager to get it done. “Afterthat, she invited different friends to dinner who also ended in her garden.”
“Really?” Abril glared at the woman with disgust.
“They deserved it,” Diane snapped. “They all pretty much abandoned me after I was paralyzed. Hell, my best friend even tried to hit on my husband.” She scowled, and then added, “Besides, I didn’t kill all my friends, just the fair-weather ones. After that I started going out to get my meals.”
When she fell silent, Crispin continued. “She did start going out to ‘get her meals.’ She went to bars, brought home men, drained them, and buried them in the garden. She had gone through the twelve victims we found outside before she accidentally discovered that she could control the minds of her victims. More importantly, she had a better idea of how much blood she could take without it killing them while still satisfying her need. A need that had finally begun to wane now that the worst of the turn was over with,” he added.
“After that, the people she feasted off survived their ordeal. At least for a while... more’s the pity,” he added dryly and explained, “Because while she could control them, she did not at first know that she could wipe their memories. So, she kept them rather than risk their blabbing about her. She was chaining them up in one of the guest bedrooms, but was sure it would be safer to keep her victims in a basement, away from prying eyes. Besides, she could not risk the neighbors noting that she was walking again or that her husband was missing, which would lead to questions. So, she decided she needed to move. She went out to the bars, found a man who lived alone in a house with a basement, and went home with him.
“After feeding on him, and tying him up in his basement, she came back here to collect her other victims—the still living ones and took them there. The next day she contacted a Realtor to sell this house. Everything was fine at first. Her husband’s company built the house, but they’d put the deed in her name to protect it from his company’s creditors. It wasn’t until she went to sign the sales contract for the house that there were any issues, and that was because her Realtor mentioned that Mr. Branson planned to dig up the gardens and build a deck that would run along the side and back of the house. Diane could not have that, of course, and went straight to the Bransons. She took control of Mr. Branson to make him drop the idea of the deck, cancel the contractor, and then had him arrange for a small patio instead. One that wouldn’t need the garden being dug up.”
Meeting Abril’s gaze he said, “She had no desire to dig up rotting bodies. Just taking control of Mr. Branson and ensuring he did not have the garden dug up for any reason seemed the best bet, but she was not sure how long her control would last. She felt her only option was to move close by and keep tabs on the Bransons.
“Diane checked out houses in the area. She decided the house around the corner was good. It had lots of property—forty acres,” he told her, and then added, “Most of those acres were woods too, where she felt she could bury any future bodies in peace. She visited and controlled the couple who owned that property so that they would give her a tour of the inside, and found the house itself was large and lovely with a basement. It was perfect. But it was not for sale... until shecontrolled the minds of the couple so that they would sell her the house quickly and for much less than it was worth. She then moved herself and her victims in there.
“Things went along fine for quite a while. Eventually, she learned she could wipe the memories of her victims, but by then she enjoyed their tears and terror when she chained them to the walls of her basement, so she continued to keep what she considered her cattle.”
“Theyweremy cattle,” Diane growled with irritation. “And it wasn’t that I enjoyed their tears and terror, but their blood tasted better after a scare than it did if I just took control of them and snacked without upsetting them.” Glowering at Abril’s horrified expression, she snapped, “Are you going to try to tell me you don’t prefer tasty meals to bland ones?”
“My meals aren’t people,” Abril snapped back and then turned to Crispin and said, “I’m guessing everything was fine until Gina started to dig up the garden? How did she even know about that? Surely, she wasn’t still watching the house all these years later?”
“She was,” Crispin responded. “But as the years continued to pass without issue, she began to check on them less and less often until it was only about once a year. Every spring,” he said meaningfully.
“Ah,” Abril breathed with understanding.
“Yes,” Crispin said, nodding. “She was doing her yearly drive-by check a few weeks ago, and saw the construction company trucks in the driveway. She was concerned, but did not know the Bransons had moved, and the men were all obviously working inside not outside. She was debating going in to find out whatwas happening, when a delivery truck pulled up. She read the driver’s mind to see that he was delivering kitchen appliances. She thought the Bransons must be doing a kitchen renovation. That was not a problem, so she left but decided she would keep a closer eye and come around weekly for a while. The next time she came around, they had started the excavation for the foundation of the addition.”
“I was already past the driveway when I spotted the excavator. I pulled into a driveway, intending just to use it to turn around and come back here, but Kim came out of the house before I could back out. I read her mind, found out that the Bransons had sold the house, and then learned what she knew about the renovations taking place. Then I took her over to control the workmen to stop the digging for the day.” She shifted in her seat, her expression irritated. “I thought I’d just get them to pack up for the day and then come for the bodies both inside and outside that night and everything would be fine. I wouldn’t even have to keep an eye on the house anymore.”
“But Lilith put paid to your plan,” Abril murmured, echoing Lucian’s words from earlier. She then said, “I’m surprised you didn’t just come over as soon as the men left and set to work digging out the bodies. You could have taken control of me, and if you’d stayed low no one would have seen you in the hole.”
“I had things to do,” Diane said with irritation. “I thought it was all sorted. I’d stopped the digging before they’d uncovered the bodies and could come back once night fell to take care of the rest. So, I wiped Kim’s memory and went to the grocery store as I planned. By the time I came back that afternoon tocheck on things, the place was crawling with police and I realized the bodies outside had been found. At that point, all I could do was remove my husband and the immortal from inside.”
“Okay,” Abril said. “So why didn’t you just come over and control us after forensics and Officer Peters left? You could have even made us dig up the bodies for you. Instead, you tried to sneak in and then attacked me when I woke up and caught you coming in through my bedroom window.”
“I already knew I couldn’t control them and wasn’t sure about you,” Diane snarled unhappily.
“How—?” Abril began but Diane interrupted her impatiently.
“Because I was at Kim’s when they were doing their door-to-door interviews. I controlled Kim so she wouldn’t answer the door when they knocked, but it was like they knew someone was there. They just kept knocking. It was fucking irritating. So, I tried to take control of them and send them away, but I couldn’t. I tried reading him”—she gestured toward Roberts—“and couldn’t. I was going to try this one”—she nodded to Crispin now—“but they gave up and left before I could. It bothered me that I couldn’t read or control them. Besides, I was getting a weird buzz off of them. I decided to follow and try to work out what was up.”
“And she witnessed Crispin and Roberts drinking bagged blood,” Lucian said with obvious displeasure.
“We were parked on the side of the road at the end of the crescent where the woods are,” Crispin said quickly. “There was no one around to see.”
“Except for her,” Lucian snapped.
“How could we know she would run through thewoods following us and then lurk in the trees and watch us feed?” Crispin said impatiently, and pointed out, “A mortal would not have been able to keep up with us on foot, and we had no idea this was immortal related at that point.”
“Why didn’t you just take off when you realized immortals were investigating? They’d already discovered the bodies outside, what were two more?” Abril asked Diane.
Crispin suspected she was trying to break the tension in the room as he and Lucian glared at each other. When Diane didn’t deign to respond to her question, he reluctantly broke the glaring contest with his uncle and said what the woman wouldn’t. “That was the last thing she wanted to do once she realized that we were what she thought were vampires. The realization made her more determined to get the bodies out of the indoor garden. Not just her husband any longer, who she wanted to give a proper burial to, but now she wanted—needed—to remove the body of the immortal as well. She wasn’t afraid of the police catching up to her, but she was terrified that if we discovered the decapitated body of one of our own, we would hunt and punish their killer mercilessly. That scared the hell out of her.”
“Why?” Abril asked at once, her gaze sliding to Diane and back. “It’s not like you guys are bloodhounds or something. You wouldn’t have been able to sniff her out. Would you?” she added with uncertainty.
“No,” he assured her and then pointed out, “But she did not know that. She had no guidebook for the skills of vampires except for fictional novels and such and some of those claimed that older vampires had allsorts of weird abilities. She feared one of usmightbe able to find her somehow using...” He hesitated as he tried to understand the thoughts in her head. “Paranormal woo-woo?” he said uncertainly, and then gave his head a shake when Abril grinned and nodded. Apparentlywoo-woowas a word now, he thought, and continued, “Diane was sure she would be found, and then killed for the immortal’s murder.”
“But her husband killed the vampire—er... immortal,” Abril pointed out.
