Years later, looking back on it all, Abby wondered if all that happened to Timmy and those around him could have been avoided...if she had handled it all differently. If she had said yes, gone to Los Angeles with him...or been more persuasive in her letters...or maybe promised him that she and Thomas would come to stay with him and Rudy if he agreed to give up his life in the spotlight as Timmy Valentine, he already had plenty of money, with vampire hunters on his trail it was time to just disappear...or if...
Owen was more sensible about the whole thing. Probably because he had never met Timmy, had never been emotionally invested in a friendship with him. After she told him the whole story, he kept pointing out the obvious to her. "You would have been dead too, in Los Angeles or in Florida or in Junction, and I never would have met you" he pointed out. "And he started running around in public like that a long time before he met you. He was already doing what he wanted to do, and he wasn't going to listen to anybody telling him to stop. Let's face it, the kid pinned a target on his chest." Hearing Owen earnestly refer to the 1,900-year-old Timmy as 'the kid' was enough to bring a smile back to her face, every time she got moody thinking about it all. Which was less and less, actually, as time went on; she was happy, after all, and Timmy had made his own choices. Yet, years later, in her memories, she could still clearly see the dressing room at the concert, and Timmy and Kitty standing there...
.."OK, OK" Timmy replied to the knocking on the door. Then to the two of them, "Look, maybe you can talk and get acquainted. Listen to the concert if you like. Well, maybe you will, Abby; Kitty's already heard it more than once. You could listen backstage or head out into the arena if you like."
"Uh - sure. What do you think, Kitty?"
"Let's go out and mingle, sweetie. I do love meeting people."
"Kitty!" Timmy interjected. "Best behavior, remember? Do not try anything at the concert. Low profile, right?"
"Sure, Timmy!" she agreed sweetly. But Abby thought again there was subtle, condescending tone in her voice.
Then Timmy hugged Abby, and she felt oddly warmed by it, reassured of his friendship. Kitty sniffed as Timmy walked out without making any physical contact with her.
"Well, girlie, let's go." Kitty said, and headed out herself. Lacking any other clear option, Abby followed behind. Well, maybe people will just think we're a pair of sisters.
They made their way out to the floor and mingled among the people for a while, listening to the opening sets as Timmy worked through his older material, and Abby felt as if she was swimming once again in an ocean of scents, the multitude of smells from the people around her mingling. Her senses hadn't been overwhelmed in this way since her nights with Timmy in Indianapolis and Chicago, months before. She saw Kitty inhaling deeply and licking her lips more than once. Trouble, she thought.
And sure enough, it was. Abby eventually lost herself in the stunning array of sensory impressions; Timmy's clear soprano, the rhythymic music, the guitars and drums and backup singers, the sweat and blood and hormones of the crowd. Suddently she found that she had lost sight of Kitty. Looking rapidly around her, Abby soon spotted her winding through the crowd, with a young man in tow - he appeared to be in his late teens too, no more than twenty, and oddly out of place in an audience of mostly middle and high-school girls. Maybe he had come to chaperone a younger sister, or with a date he was now ignoring or fighting with. She quickly followed, but kept back slightly. As they made their way into the hallways outside the main arena, Kitty and the young man leaned their heads towards each other, laughing softly. She closed the gap more rapidly as they broke out of the crowd and into the hallways outside the main floor, heading toward the wide staircases leading up. Abby could see she was leading him back and up toward emptier spaces, everyone crowded into their seats or the floor, listening to the songs.
"Hey, Sis! Wait up!" she called.
Kitty turned with an irritated look. "Don't tag along, little sister. I want to get to know this nice chap better." The man looked curiously at Abby, then apparently fell for their ruse. "Look, kid, Kitty and I are going to discuss some adult stuff, okay? No offense, just go and listen to Timmy. I'll bring her back safe and sound." he smiled.
It's not her I'm worried about, you idiot. Abby thought. They were still ascending, and were soon at the even more deserted highest level. The man glanced back at Abby again. He turned to face Kitty. "Hey Kitty, look, I..."
"Hush," she said, and slapped her right hand over his mouth, then grabbed his right arm with her left, pushing him back against the wall. "I'd like to give you a kiss." Abby saw his eyes open wider in surprise, then watched his expression turn to anger. But it quickly changed to surprise again when he tried to twist away, and grabbed her right arm in an effort to pull her hand away from his mouth. He was obviously discovering just how strong she was; he couldn't budge her.
Then Kitty opened her mouth, and his expression turned to terror. Her teeth were extending, sharp, with serrated edges, and Abby saw her eyes had a wolfish cast to them now. The man's struggles became more desperate, his eyes wilder.
"Oh now, dear boy, what's the matter?" Kitty's voice was almost a hiss. "I thought you wanted to be closer to me, to kiss me..." She leaned in and ran her tongue over his lips and onto the side of his neck. Now there was a muffled but clearly desperate whimpering noise coming from his mouth, Kitty's iron grasp still covering his mouth.
Abby heard a voice say "Stop it, Kitty." She realized it was her own.
"Oh sweetie," Kitty said, turning to face her. "Don't you want some too? I'm sure this red-blooded fellow has enough for both of us."
And Abby felt a sudden and surprising surge of rage inside her, rage at Kitty's sadistic taunts and obvious delight in the young man's fear. It ws unnecessary, it was cruel, it was...monstrous.
"Stop it, you bitch" she said, louder this time, and realized her own fangs and claws and night-predator eyes were showing themselves.
"You really are just as sentimental and foolish as Timmy, aren't you?" Kitty sneered, and then found herself on her back, the man torn from her grasp, as Abby slammed into her midsection with her full weight and strength. Kitty slid backwards on the floor.
"Little bitch!" she howled as she jumped up. Abby moved between her and the stunned young man, who was just getting to his feet. "Run!" Abby said to him. But he seemed immobilized, gaping first at her and then at Kitty. "Run or she'll kill you!" Abby hissed. "Thank you...thank you!" he sputtered, and did just that. But Kitty had launched herself right back at Abby, and easily knocked her down. Abby realized that Kitty was both physically bigger and stronger than she was, because she had been nearly a full-grown woman when she was turned. Kitty tried to rush after the man, but Abby grabbed an ankle just in time and sent her crashing to the floor.
Then Abby herself was back on her feet and heading towards a door that she suspected led into an emergency stairwell. It did; when the door banged open she found herself on a small landing, the stairs before her. As she had hoped, in her anger Kitty had stopped chasing her prey and was instead coming after her, and she thought she could lead her down and outside. The last thing Timmy needed was some kind of disturbance right in the middle of his concert. She dashed quickly down the stairs. But there was a central opening in the middle of the stairs as they wound downwards, more than big enough for a person, and suddenly Kitty was there in mid-air next to her; she had leaped into the gap and simply let herself drop down until she had caught up to Abby.
Kitty seized the handrail to stop her fall and flipped over it, knocking Abby into the wall and then trying to slash at her with her claws. Abby pulled back and then kicked Kitty in the stomach as she closed in on her. As Abby leaped down to the next landing, she felt a hard impact on her back and then sudden pain shooting through her side as Kitty raked her with her claws, cutting through her clothes and deeply into her sides.
And then...the door to the landing banged open, and Rudy Lydick stood there. In one hand he had a gun. "Stop, Kitty!" he yelled at her. Kitty pulled back, snarling; then suddently burst out laughing. "What are you going to do with that, Rudy? Shoot me?"
"As a matter of fact, yes," he replied. "This is loaded with silver bullets. I don't expect it to actually kill you, but you will be in extreme pain and feeling very weak for quite a while. Are you all right, Miss Abby?" he called out to her. Abby was just getting off the floor, and gently examining the wounds on her side; a thin trickle of blood oozed out, but that was all. "I'll be okay," she replied. "Still hurts, though."
"All right," Rudy answered. "Now, let's all calmly head back down and go backstage, where we can discuss this like civilized people." Kitty stood considering this for a few seconds, then visibly relaxed. "All right. I know Timmy has his rules. Sorry! I just got carried away a little."
Rudy merely frowned at this, and waited for them to start down the stairs again, then followed. And as they walked, even as she winced at the unfamiliar sensation of pain filling her side, another thought occured to her: I saved somebody's life tonight. Didn't I? Saved a life. She turned this idea over in her mind, and found it brought her pleasure, even as she realized it could never cancel out all the blood across all the decades.
A few minutes later they were in Timmy's dressing room; he would be coming back in a few minutes for a break and costume change, to put on his Little Dracula outfit and cape. "Did you know, Abby," said Kitty, 'that I think Timmy is the oldest of us all? Anywhere? I think he could be invincible, because the things that hurt the rest of us - the sunlight, the crosses, the silver - they don't affect him anymore. But there is one thing that makes him weak! This..compassion that he feels! He thinks he can be friends with humans! Friends!" Here she glared at Rudy, who stood there impassively. Kitty went on. "You make him weak too, little girl, with your feelings and your wishing to be human again. Oh yes, he talked to me about you! But we are predators, and they are our prey. Is the lion friends with the zebra?"
You monster, Abby thought, remembering the sadistic glee on Kitty's face as she taunted the young man she had trapped and expected to kill. You monster. I will never be like you. I will walk into the midday sun, before I let myself become like you.
Then Timmy was walking through the dressing room door. He looked around and took in the scene. "Are you alright, Abby?" was the first thing he said.
"I..yes. I'll be fine." And she would be, she knew; by tomorrow night the gashes in her side (which had barely leaked any blood; her body retained it well) would only be pale scars cutting across her skin; by the next night, they would be gone. Even as she sat there, the initial pain was gone, to be replaced by a tingling sensation as her body set to work stitching itself back together.
"Good." Then Timmy turned towards Kitty. "Damn it, Kitty! What were you thinking? Were you thinking? You don't hurt a friend of mine and start a fight during my concert!"
"She was trying to hunt, Timmy," Abby interjected. "She was luring a young man away from the crowd, then taunting him, toying with him..."
"A girl's got to eat," Kitty sniffed in reply.
"Kitty. Rudy is going to watch you the rest of the concert. Abby, let me give you a new shirt." Timmy was already stripped down to his underwear, doing a quick costume change, and he tossed the black shirt he had been wearing to Abby. Abby paused, then remembered the sight of Timmy standing naked in his hotel room, just a few feet from her, all those months before. No sense being shy. I've already seen all of him. She pulled off the tattered shirt, briefly exposing her bare chest and the breasts that were no more than bumps on her chest. Rudy discreetly looked away; Timmy glanced at her for perhaps a second or so before continuing to pull on his outfit; Kitty sniffed, and puffed up her own fully developed chest, as if that was supposed to either impress or intimidate her. Abby buttoned up the shirt and was done. "Now what about me?" she said as she turned back to Timmy.
"You can listen to the rest of the concert from the VIP area in front," he replied. "I'll get you in there."
And he did. She managed to enjoy it too. He finally came to his newer material, including Vampire Junction and Come Into My Coffin.
I'm scared to sleep alone
It chills me to the bone
The coffin's big, I'm just a kid,
Too young to sleep alone
Come into my coffin
Don't want to sleep alone
The crowd roared approval as the vampire boy sang about the loneliness of being a vampire, and Abby thought once again of the game Bloodsucker in the arcade, with the hunters and their never-ending pursuit of the miniature Timmy on the screen. Once the final set and the final bows were done, she quickly headed backstage. Rudy and Kitty were gone from the dressing room and she took the opportunity to talk with Timmy.
"Timmy. She's worse than you said. She really is a monster."
"I know. But what am I supposed to do with her?"
"She puts you in danger! Send her away!" Abby exclaimed fiercely.
"Well, I..I can't. I'm responsible for her, really."
"Why? She'd been on her own for 60 years before you found her again in New York, you told me! Let her take care of herself."
"I'm the one who made her a vampire."
Abby was stunned into silence for several seconds. "What?" she finally managed to ask.
Timmy sighed. "It was in Cambridge, in England, right after World War One. I used to go by the college in the evening, listen to a boy's choir that practiced there. I've been in a few boy's choirs myself, you know. One evening another group came to the theater hall, long after the choir had left, and I had just been wandering around thinking, keeping to the shadows. They were college students mostly, several boys and a girl, and they had somehow coerced or intimidated one of the choir boys into accompanying them. They were some kind of occult group, and they were performing some silly ritual, but the boy who was their leader had brought a girl who was a little younger there. Kitty. He was a psychopath, sadistic, and they had tied her to a table, and he had a knife...he said it was time to call forth the dark powers, and he stabbed her. Over and over. He meant to actually sacrifice her, kill her. And the smell of all the blood just overcame me, I jumped among them, knocked him down, and I looked pretty fierce, I think...they ran screaming, but the girl was already bleeding to death, I could tell she wasn't going to make it...so I drank her blood. I was hungry. And while I was drinking, I saw the choir boy watching me. All the others had run away, but he was watching, and when he saw me looking back he jumped up to run. 'Wait!' I said. 'I won't hurt you!' But he ran, and then I felt sure he would bring someone back, and I panicked and ran too. And left Kitty there, not dead, and she turned. So it was an accident, I was careless, I made her what she is, and now I'm...well..I have to be the one responsible for her."
"So that's why you asked her to come to Los Angeles, when you met her in New York again, after all these years..." Abbys' voice trailed off.
"Part of it. I did need a friend. I did ask you to come with me, before I even met her," Timmy replied. There was hint of pre-adolescent petulance in his voice, a slight whining tone, and Abby thought she could instantly see what he meant. You could have been the one with me, not her, Abby. I asked you.
"Timmy, don't you dare try to blame..."
"No," he quickly said, "you're right. I'm sorry, that wasn't fair. But maybe it's for the best that she's with me. That way I can rein in some of her excesses."
They talked a little while longer, and Abby warned him to be very careful, if one hunter had already come after him there would be more, and Timmy told her to not to worry. "This tour ends in Florida in just a few days. Then my next album, Funhouse, comes out, and I do one more tour. That's it, Abby, then I'm done. And we can see each other again, when the Funhouse tour comes to the Midwest." They hugged again, and Abby realized how much she was coming to like this physical contact, it seemed so long since she and Thomas had shared something like it, they hardly touched anymore...Timmy led her to find Rudy, so she could relax and ride home, rather than return on her own after the fight and her injury. As the limo pulled away, she turned to look back out the window at him, and he waved, and she never saw Timmy again.
Rudy drove her almost all the way home again, and told her some more about what had happened in the last few months - Timmy's memory therapy, the attack on the mansion, the tour. When he finally stopped to let her out, she thanked him and gave him a quick hug for the first time. "Thanks Rudy. She was bigger and stronger than me. If you hadn't shown up when you did, she might really have hurt me."
"I had been watching from a distance. I knew she was up to something foolish and risky. The only trick was getting through the crowd and out into the open so I could follow you. When I heard the shouts and fighting on the levels above me, I headed for the stairwell hoping I could come up and stop Kitty."
"She's horrible."
"Yes. And I've told Master Timmy that, and he agrees, and yet..." He shrugged.
"I know. He feels responsible, because he's the one who turned her. I...I'm sorry I couldn't go with him when he asked, Rudy. Maybe I really could have prevented some of this from happening."
"Very kind of you to say so. But I think Timmy is old enough to take responsibility for his own actions." Rudy smiled at his own little joke, and Abby found herself smiling too, and a fresh surge of optimism spread through her that Timmy might yet get away with it all.
At home Thomas frowned angrily as he examined her injuries, and said "I don't want you to see him again. At all! Look what's happened now, and the danger you're in just by being near him, now that hunters are after him."
"He says he's done after this last album and one more tour. Then it's over."
"What I see is that he keeps pushing his luck, and I think it'll run out before he thinks it will."
She didn't want to agree, yet it was hard to argue with what Thomas said, and Abby fell silent herself.
When she first saw the news three nights later, Abby felt sick. She sank down in front of the old television, listening numbly to the newscasters. Thomas stood beside her.
"At least six confirmed dead, and dozens more with injuries, some serious, following the equipment explosion," she heard. "Tour representatives explained that it was a malfunction of laser equipment for the light show and special effects during the concert, although investigators questioned whether an equipment malfunction could have produced an explosion of that magnitude. There has been no comment from Timmy Valentine or his representatives at this point." So he's alive, she thought, but that was no 'equipment problem.' They came after him again. Right there at the concert, with all those people! But they must have figured it was the one place where they could be certain he was there.
Thomas started to speak up. "Well, I have to say, I..."
"DON'T!" she screamed at him, and he took a step back, in shock, and Abby was surprised herself, at the sudden intensity of her anger. "Don't you dare GLOAT! He could have been killed, and all those people were killed, and you're going to say 'I told you so'? DAMN IT!"
Thomas remained speechless, and then she collapsed to the floor, the burst of energy draining from her like air from a punctured balloon, and she sat cross-legged with her head in her hands. After a few seconds, Thomas turned and left, and they did not speak again that evening.
The next night, it seemed they both wanted to reconcile. Thomas took the initiative once she was awake. "Abby...about last night. I'm sorry I offended you, I never meant to sound like I was gloating..."
"Thomas...it's okay, really. Let's forget about it. I don't like to argue with you. It's just that...he's my friend. And I'm afraid I'll lose him, and it shouldn't have to happen."
"All I want is to look out for you. Keep you from getting hurt. The way to do that is to keep quiet, fly under the radar, don't take unnecessary risks. It's worked for us. It worked for you, all those years, before we ever met."
"I know. And that's how Timmy had lived, too. He's told me about it. But he has this plan to get rich...well, I guess he is rich, now...and then he thinks he can do whatever he wants, once he's done being the superstar, and leaves this life behind. But I have tried to warn him, that it's getting more dagerous for him."
The news featured updates and a woman talking to reporters outside Timmy's L.A. mansion. She was middle-aged, slightly taller than average, with long and curly dark hair. The subtitles on the screen identified her as Dr. Carla Rubens, Timmy Valentine's Therapist.
"...Just a kid, and of course he's traumatized by what happened," she was saying. "He's canceled all his public appearances for now, and the next tour has been postponed indefinitely. He needs time to get over this." The newscast went on. Timmy's record label and the tour promoters were apparently throwing money at the injured and the families of those killed, hoping to forestall lawsuits and inquiries. Oh Timmy, she thought. Please write again. Tell me what happened, tell me you're really done now, tell me you have a plan to take your money and disappear. Even if I can't write or see you again...I don't want my friend to die.
The letter came over a week later:
...of course, what you heard on the news was just a cover story. Some equipment did explode, but it was because of the attack. The man from Los Angeles was back again, his name is Zottoli, still seeking revenge for his niece. He wanted to kill me, of course, but he got Kitty instead. She is gone, truly dead, and I'm alone again. What was he thinking, really? He was going to murder a child on stage, in front of thousands of witnesses? But there were others, too, and they took me by surprise. Old, much older now, but I recognized them all the same. The students from Cambridge, all those years ago, and the choirboy - he must be 70 now, they must be close to 80 years old! They somehow got through backstage, to attack me. They had a weapon...I was scared, and I haven't felt fear in such a long time, I hardly recognized it. I know they will all come after me again. Soon I will go to Junction, to my vacation home. Then we shall see how this is meant to end. Abby, I am glad you chose not to come with me, I know now it was the right thing for you to do. I am so afraid that you would be dead now.
His words seemed - what was it? - fatalistic to her, as if he expected worse to come and was resigned to it. Is there really a plan, Timmy? Was there ever? How did you really think this was all going to end? And a new thought came to her, a memory of what he had said to her the first night they had met, when she asked how he was able to survive the daylight. I was waiting for the sun on purpose...that I remember. That had been centuries ago, in France, from what he told her. But at that time and place, he had wanted to die, and found that he could not, at least not from the Sun. Oh Timmy. Oh no. Do you want to die? Are you just letting them come after you? Is that why you let the hunter go in Los Angeles, the first time he attacked? You've decided again that you can't go on, and this is how you're going to end it?
She wrote to him, but she could not bear to ask the suspicion that had formed in her. She was afraid of how he might answer.
Timmy - we both know they will keep coming after you. Maybe even your vacation home isn't safe, they will find out about it somehow. You could come here and hide out until you decide what to do. She could imagine what Thomas would have to say about that! With all your money, you can do just like you told me - go anywhere, do whatever you want. Change your name now. Go now. Leave this latest life behind.
More weeks passed, and now it was late Autumn, and she heard nothing more, but package did come; a copy of Funhouse, the album cover authographed by Timmy. She played it night after night, listening to his voice, wondering is he would ever see her friend again. Finally another letter arrived.
Abby. I am in Junction now, and this will end here. I think Carla has a bigger part to play in this, now. And one of the hunters in Florida - the one who had been a choirboy all those years ago - he is her ex-husband. He became a conductor. He saw me on TV, and recognized me, because he was at the Opera in Thauberg when I was there. My career in the German opera did not end well, and everyone there thought that I had died. Then he saw me on TV, in an interview, and recognized me as the boy from all those years before. Carla says he actually called her up, and when he mentioned me, almost hysterical about what he had seen, she let slip that I had just signed up to be her patient, and he begged her not to see me, told her I was a monster of some kind. Which of course just made her more curious about seeing me. I do not believe all this can be mere coincidence - these Jungian analysts call it synchronicity, people and things coming together through the workings of the collective unconscious, that vast sea of images and archetypes and precognitions shared by the human race. What seems like chance is ordained by our unconscious minds, joining together. Of course we called this fate or destiny in times past.
I remember France now. All of it. I do not want to share it all with you, the horror of what I saw and experienced, but I must tell you enough so that you understand. It was 1440, and the man in the castle was Gilles de Rais, who was called Bluebeard by some. He had fought with Joan of Arc against the English. I encountered him three times, and was changed, and became what I am now. The first time I walked out of that forest in the late evening and towards the castle, and then there were hoofbeats, and ropes. I should have been able to break them easily, but they were coated with wolfsbane, and it felt as if it burned my hands. The leader laughed, and said their lord would enjoy some unexpected entertainment that night.
They took me up to his banquet hall, and there was silver everywhere - platters and serving trays and utensils - and it weakened me more. They tied me down to a table, and pulled off my clothes. And there I met him. He wore a gold cross, and when he leaned over me it touched my chest, and it felt like it burned. I cried out and flinched away, and he said 'interesting', and took it off. The he cut me open, the knife ripping through my belly. Then he raped me. I was certain I would die, the final death, I was so weak and had lost so much blood. But once he was finished, and satisfied, his servants carried me out of that room even as I felt my unlife draining away, and buried me near the castle. Already I was feeling better, away from the silver and cross and wolfsbane. For days I lay there in the ground, as my body stitched itself back together, and when I was recovered I dug myself out in the night and I swore revenge. I would make him suffer as I had suffered all those centuries, I would turn him into what I was. I fed on a guard who was patrolling outside, because I was ravenous after my body healed itself, and then I flew up to his tower, his rooms, to do what I intended.
And he welcomed me, when he saw what I was. Begged me to make him what I was. He said I was a dark angel from hell, come to reward him for his evil by making him a prince of hell, and when I denied this he asked me to accompany him to his dungeons and he would prove that he was evil enough to be worthy of such an 'honor.' And I went with him, and saw the children there...Abby, I will not describe it to you. But I fled that place, I told him he was a madman and monster worse than I was, and if I did what I had originally planned he would become a monster ten times worse. And I fled back into the forest, far from that place of madness, but I could find no peace for myself, and I realized that I had to confront him again.
When I finally went back I found that he had been arrested by the church and charged with blasphemy and heresy, which carried the death penalty in that time and place. It was a simple matter to get into the prison and go to his cell at night, and I sat there beside his cell, and we talked. He thought I had come back to give him his reward, and I finally understood him. He was obsessed with Joan, and said that she was the last of the great and good, and there was nothing left for him but to be some great embodiment of evil. He was nothing but a pitiful man filled with delusions. I told him as much, that he had no reward from me, that hell was not in awe of him, that his vision of great evil was nothing but a mask for his cruelty and lust, to make it seem something other than what it was. And he wept, and said I had stripped all that he had believed away from him, and I actually felt pity for him. From the seedling of pity grows the tree of compassion, and I learned (or perhaps remembered), in that place, how to feel human emotion again. And I saw in him the mirror image of myself. He was a man who had wanted to become a monster, and I was a monster who wanted to be human again. And I had killed children too, hadn't I, across those long centuries? Not as he had, with sadism and lust, but still, what had I done?
They were going to burn him at sunrise the next day. And I saw with these new (or reawakened) feelings what I had been all those centuries, without remorse or pity, and I saw what the future would be for me, now that I could feel again, but still have to kill to live. And that is why I waited for the Sun; I was too afraid to go on, and wanted to die rather than face endless years of regret.
But I discovered the Sun could no longer hurt me, and decided that perhpas fate was not done with me yet, and I had to go on no matter what I felt. I have a theory about this. You and I, we think that because our bodies do not grow or age that we do not change. But I think we do. Our powers grow and change, but we do not necessarily realize it unless our minds and feelings change too. The Sun, the crosses, the other things - they really do hurt us, at first. But over centuries we become resistant, and the pain that we feel from them is - as Carla would say - 'psychosomatic.' It is a product of our own minds, our own fears, and when we free ourselves from our illusions these things lose their power over us. Even the Sun. Perhaps it really does take a thousand years, or more, for us to evolve physically to this point. And we must make a mental leap as well, as I did in that awful place in France, before we can realize our new immunity to those things. Now I must regain what happened to me in Pompeii, and then I will be whole again. Of course in one sense I know what happened; I was castrated and turned into a vampire. But I must remember it, and then I will be healed, and ready for whatever fate awaits me. I will tell you all I can before that happens.
She spent hours thinking it all over, the things he had written, the terrible things that had happened to him. She did not even know if her letters would reach him now, would somehow get forwarded to Junction, if she sould write back. But she had to try.
Dear Timmy:
I am so sorry about all that happened to you, and wish I could be there, to do or say something to comfort you. Perhaps you were lucky to lose your human feelings all those years, because then you had the strength to go on, and if you had died I would never have had you as a friend. And perhaps this is selfish of me, but don't give in now. I need a friend too, and I am glad you are there. Please don't wait for them to come after you, just go now. And hide. And I will always be here, if you need me. But was that true, she wondered, even as she wrote it? Maybe they wouldn't be able to stay in Indiana much longer, with all that was going on. But if they had to leave, how would Timmy ever find her again? It was coming to an end, she felt it, for Timmy and for her, and she found herself afraid for both of them.
(Everything - and I mean everything - will be resolved in Chapter 2 of this installment. Really!)
