21. DANGEROUS TIMES
“OH, DEAR,” Aunt Janet said, “not another one.”
“Another what, Aunt Janet?” Leesa asked, emerging from the kitchen with her mom where they had been doing the dishes. It was the first time since Leesa arrived in Connecticut that her aunt had permitted her to help with the clean up for any meal. Since all Leesa’s previous visits had been for just a few days or less, Aunt Janet had brushed off all Leesa’s offers to assist by saying she was a guest and guests did not do dishes in her house. This time, Leesa was staying for more than a week, which apparently moved her out of the guest category. She was happy to finally have the chance to pitch in.
“Another young woman has disappeared,” Aunt Janet said.
Aunt Janet was sitting on the couch next to her husband, watching the news on television. Max lay on the floor by their feet. Bradley was perched on the front of the big easy chair, staring intently at the TV. Anyone who vanished mysteriously held special interest for him.
“That’s the second one in two days,” Aunt Janet continued. She eased over to make room for her sister as Judy sat down beside her. “Plus, a young man went missing yesterday, too.”
“That’s horrible,” Judy said.
Leesa slid onto the wooden rocking chair that was her favorite place to sit when she was here. Max immediately took up his post beside the chair, where Leesa could pet his head easily while she rocked.
“Three people just since yesterday?” Leesa said, more to herself than to anyone else. She did not like the sound of that. Yesterday was the first day after the solstice. She wondered if Rave’s fear was coming true—that the solstice was magnifying the effects of Destiratu. Were the vampires becoming less careful with their hunting, driven by their increased thirst for blood? She hoped there was a simpler explanation.
“I heard about the guy who got lost hiking down by Haddam,” Bradley said. “Where did the first woman go missing?”
“Up by Tolland,” Aunt Janet said. “Her husband said she walked four blocks to the mini-mart to get some chips and dip yesterday evening, and she never came back. They’ve been searching for her since last night, but haven’t found any sign of her.”
Leesa pictured a map of Connecticut in her head. Tolland was fifty or sixty miles north and east; Haddam was much closer, to the south and slightly east.
“What about the woman today?” she asked.
“Over in Ledyard,” Uncle Roger said. “She was a junior at UConn, home for the holidays. Her parents said she was sitting in the backyard, reading. Her mom went out to tell her something, and she was gone. The book she had been reading was still on her chair.”
Leesa frowned. Unless the girl had taken off on her own for some reason, her abductor had been very bold. She shuddered to think about vampires being so driven they would snatch someone from her own back yard.
“Where’s Ledyard?” Leesa had heard the name, but couldn’t place the town.
“Over by New London,” Uncle Roger said. “A bit north of it.”
Leesa pictured the map in her head again and felt her heart speed up. If you made a triangle out of the incidents, the area where Rave said the vampire lair was hidden would be inside that triangle. She doubted it was a coincidence. She especially did not like that this was happening on the heels of her dream the other night.
“I think it might be vampires,” she said quietly.
For a moment, no one spoke. Any other group would have scoffed at such a statement, but not this family. They knew well that vampires existed and they had suffered at the creatures’ hands. Judy was wringing her hands now, and Bradley had grown pale.
“What makes you say that?” Uncle Roger finally asked.
Leesa thought for a moment. She couldn’t tell them what Rave had said without giving away his secret. Still, she had to say something. An idea popped into her head.
“Something Dr. Clerval told us in Vampire Science. He said sometimes the solstice magnifies their thirst, making it hard for them to control themselves. The solstice was just two days ago.”
“Oh, my god,” Judy said quietly. “What should we do? We have to tell somebody.”
“Tell them what, Mom?” Bradley asked skeptically. “That we think vampires are behind these attacks? They’d put us in straitjackets and lock us up.”
“But people need to know they have to be extra careful.”
“I don’t think we need to worry about that too much,” Uncle Roger said. “With all the attention these disappearances are getting, people will already start being careful.”
“Uncle Roger’s right,” Leesa said. “It doesn’t matter whether people think it’s vampires or some psycho serial killer. They’ll either be extra careful or they won’t.”
“They’re likely to be more careful if they think there’s a psycho running around,” Bradley said. “That’s something they can believe.”
“Did the professor say how long this solstice thing would last?” Aunt Janet asked. “With the vampires, I mean?”
Leesa shook her head. “He didn’t know. Not much longer, I hope.”
For the first time, she felt a bit of anger toward Rave and his people. They were vampire hunters, after all—they should be here, acting as a check upon the creatures, not hiding somewhere in New Hampshire. Her anger faded as quickly as it had appeared. An all out war between volkaane and vampire was something nobody wanted. Vampires hunting humans was nothing new—they were usually just a bit more circumspect about it. The last thing the vampires wanted was human armies searching for them. They would rein themselves in, she was pretty sure, before they drew too much attention.
At least she hoped they would.