Earthly Angels vs Earthly Demons. Vampires, the heirs of Lillith, and the Children of the Horned-god Cain. High School Heroine must overcome personal tragedy to deal with the occult legacy of her small town’s hidden history.
Chapter One.
My name is Madeline Stevens, I’m seventeen. My mom turns to face me, the house phone in her hand, and I know something is very wrong. The last time she looked at me like this was when they found dad’s body.
Mom struggles for words as speaks into the receiver. “Oh my God. No. Anita that’s… just awful, awful.” This is bad. Jennifer Stevens is rarely lost for words, an important strength when you’re a High School English teacher, and yes she passed this trait on to me.
“It’s Brandon isn’t it?” I ask once they are done on the phone. She nods. Anita Lyons was one of my mom’s best friends in Eden Field, perhaps the only one. We were still the newcomers to this patch of Vermont, three years doesn’t mean much in a small town.
“They’ve found him Madeline.”
Brandon is… was Anita’s son. I take the news like a punch to the heart. Hell she even used the same words when dad was found. Now it’s Brandon, my friend. We’d dated last summer, nothing serious, but things went sour with me when dad disappeared. Yet he was there for me, even after the funeral. Eden Field moved on, I didn’t, and Brandon understood. Not many had. The doctor’s solution came in tablet form.
“He’s dead?” I was asking the question with a voice filled with disbelief and hope, but the pit of my stomach didn’t share that optimism. Brandon had being missing since the end of last week, doing something like that was very un-Brandon-like.
We don’t talk in the car, the Honda CR-V that mum bought to piss off grandpa-why-don’t-you-buy-American Kramer. We love him really. It’s not far to Anita’s Lyons, it’s not far to any part of Eden Field. We drop down from Willing’s house onto Main Street, because between the Lake and town the houses are arranged chaotically vying for position and views, beyond that things fall into the more usual grid pattern. Perhaps I shouldn’t be here, but I guess we’ve fallen into that mother daughter friendship thing, maybe sooner than some, I’m no expert. I mean next birthday I get to vote, I guess that makes me a grown up, almost, but mainly this year has been hell.
They say a crisis either pulls a family together or pushes it apart. What I didn’t want or need was another test.
Anita hugs us as we come inside, she has the hollowed out look that I recognise. Her eyes are red from too many tears. We go through into the living room.
Anita paces around in front of the pale fire surround, a furtive shadow of her usual self against the beige and creams of furnishings. Her hair is dark like Brandon’s, short and bobbed. Mom sits down next me, her blonde hair falls over her face, long and straight. Tear filled eyes hold steady for now. She takes my hand.
My skin is lighter, kissed by freckles in summer. My dad’s skin. My hair is that shade of golden red, that people call strawberry blonde, his colouring.
I wait for the bad news. Anita doesn’t disappoint, we’re past that now. “They found him in pieces.”
I bite my lip.
“Dismembered” Anita states. Just to make sure we understand.
You get to hear things growing up, of course parents are always careful about what they say, but kids learn to listen. I know more about how evil people can be to other people than I’d like to. Dad was a cop, he started out in New York, got tired of the pace and switched to Northern Vermont, took a job as a deputy in Eden Field, on the understanding the role of Sheriff was going come up. It did the following year, and he won the election. My dad had always been charismatic, although it helped that the retiring Sheriff endorsed him.
To be honest the next forty minutes seems a blur of grief and tears, I don’t remember much of what we did and said, maybe because so much of it was instinctive, from the heart, perhaps it’s all still too soon, but Anita and her husband Bill had been there for us when dad went missing, and when he was found.
My mom notes the time and says. “Dan will be coming back before long.” Daniel Stevens was my baby brother, twelve years old and thankfully not yet an awkward teen, although that couldn’t last. Matt Robinson was his buddy, they often spent Saturday afternoons shooting each other on their Playstations. I preferred a Wii.
“I’m sorry for Anita and Bill.” I said as we drove home. I didn’t like imagining them having to identify their only son after he’d been carved up. It sickened me to the core to know someone had done this, but I knew why Anita had told mom these grisly details, news like this doesn’t stay under wraps in a small town. I’d hear them again sooner than later.
