Solving the Vampire Murders

eleven

Mandy wrapped her fingers around the gold wedding band dangling from her neck. Drawing on her father's strength like she always did when something felt wrong.

In the darkness of the hallway she listened to the soothing sound of Torren's heart. Waiting for the moment it slowed and found the steady rhythm of sleep. She could have listened to the sweet lullaby of his easy rest all night, content knowing he was safe inside her room.

But she couldn't keep him locked away forever. Torren's curiosity about Medea's Sin had stirred concern in her—an urgency she hadn't anticipated. If Torren went poking around the vampire club, nothing good would come of it.

There would be no last party with her sisters tonight. No last evening with Torren before the Mandy he knew fell away forever.

She had known Torren since kindergarten when her father started coaching his tee-ball team. He had always been too smart for his own good, even then. But now, Torren had become like a bloodhound when he smelled injustice. If his roommate had been murdered by a member of the coven, Torren would sniff it out.

And then what would happen?

Wrapping her arms around her knees, Mandy pushed the thought from her mind. Torren was alive and would stay that way. Through the door, Mandy could hear her satin pillowcase rustling against the strands of his hair as he struggled to find sleep.

It still seemed impossible that he had linked Medea's Sin to a murder. Mandy was familiar enough with Torren's 'lawyer-voice' that she knew when he was digging for details.

Torren also knew her well enough to tell when she was lying. So, Mandy had told him the truth. Or at least a version of the truth. He wanted to know about Medea's Sin, and Mandy had given him just enough information to send him on a false trail. She would make sure he satiated his thirst for knowledge.

Once she was sure Torren was out cold, dreaming peacefully, Mandy pulled out the key to her bedroom and locked the door.

"Don't worry, Torn," Mandy whispered. "It's my turn to watch over you."

Mandy meant to stand up and walk down the creaking wooden staircase, but couldn't get her legs to work. Instead, she kept listening to the sound of his heart and how his breath came and went in heavy sighs. Her grip on her father's ring tightened. Torren had slept the same way inside her father's cold hospital room, refusing to leave even after visiting hours. A scratchy cotton blanket clutched over his shoulders.

It was a night she would never forget.

The night her daddy's machines were turned off and the spiderweb of tubes removed. His lips blue. Cheeks bloodless. Then the open casket. The long line of well-wishers with their casseroles and teary eyes. Torren had stood by her side, one hand in his pocket, the other in hers.

Even with Torren, and mom, and Babcia holding her together, she had completely fallen apart. Her father hadn't just died, he had been forced to walk a painfully slow march into the next life. Drowning in his own fluids at the end.

Mandy wished she could cry, but she couldn't anymore. A side effect of the choices she had made. But, she had cried enough tears to fill an ocean over the last five years.

Watching death come for her father, stealing one breath at a time had made Mandy want to chase down life. Once she was able to pull herself together in the weeks after his death, Mandy embraced anything that made her blood thrum and her toes curl.

She'd be damned before letting life slip away.

So she began to seek ways to live forever. Reading the occult. Visiting fortune tellers. Seeking out whispers of the supernatural in the ugly corners of abandoned homes and flophouses.

By sixteen, she had a fake ID for eighteen. By eighteen, she had met enough people to get in wherever she wanted. Dancing and drinking at clubs wasn't enough after a while.

She wanted more.

A taste of something that would last forever. Life everlasting. No tubes, no blue lips, no graveyard dirt. With reckless abandon, she started discovering more about creatures most girls ran away from. She knew they were out there, lurking not just in the shadows of her mind, but in the seedy corners of the world.

Waiting to give her a kiss deep enough to last forever. 

Mandy had graduated high school and gotten into Eastern only because Torren refused to let her fail. He would pick her up in his rusted out Civic every morning, forcing McDonald's egg and cheese sandwiches and black coffee on her as they drove to school. He wrote papers for her, made up lies for her, calmed her mom down when she threatened to send her to a psych ward.

When things started to get bad at Eastern, Torren found her a therapy group to attend. At first, she balked at the idea. Flat out refusing she needed help. She knew what she wanted, and therapy wasn't going to solve that problem. Torren had threatened to stop answering her calls if she didn't at least try. So, in the end, she did. Because Torren was the one person she couldn't lose.

Funnily enough, the vampire she sought found her. Not in a club or a dark corner. He was nothing like Mandy had imagined, but from the moment he strolled into her life this summer, she knew he was the one.