CHAPTER TEN

Dead Vampire Walking

Ten minutes later, Sam and Abby came out of his office, and she had gotten most of her natural color back. Sookie was waitressing tables while Bill sat at their table and looked at them curiously. Sam looked around the bar and was happy to see it wasn't at all busy, since it was a Monday night.

"Stay here," Sam told Abby. "I'll be right back." He walked away and spoke with Tara for a few minutes. Tara looked at Abby oddly before apparently Sam said something to wipe it off of her face. He returned to Abby. "Tara will watch the place for an hour while we're gone."

Abby smiled nervously. "Thank you, Sam. I appreciate you putting up with all this . . . mess."

"Nah, I'm used to it," he said as they walked to Bill. "This is turning into a regular freak town," he chuckled.

The cemetery was only a five minute drive from Merlotte's, and during that time, no one spoke a word. Abby's mind was racing with what exactly she was going to say, while Bill's face was contorted in deep thought about what she had to say. Sookie's mind was on getting the whole interesting story, while Sam was reveling in the fact that Abby was absent-mindedly rubbing the outside of his thigh.

They drove through the main cemetery entrance, an old rod-iron fence arch with the words, "Magnolia Cemetery" spelled out in the iron. Sookie drove straight to the closest spot to Bill's gravesite and they all got out of the car. Still silent, Sam and Abby followed Bill and Sookie to the marked area, and they all stopped and stared at the ancient, cracked concrete marker.

Sam tightened his grip on Abby's shoulders. "My God," Abby muttered. "It's . . . true. The pictures I have of my great, whatever fathers resemble nothing of you," she said, looking at Bill. "I knew it was you—this Lt. William Thomas Compton—when I saw you in Sam's bar last night." She then looked at Sookie. "You've been keeping it clean," she told her.

"Yes. I miss him during the day and sometimes—" She ended her answer short when she saw Abby kneel down to the marker and run her fingers over it.

"From what I remember, without my paperwork," Abby began, her eyes remaining on the marker, "Rose Abigail took the kids to Carteret County on the Eastern shore of North Carolina to live with her brother and his family. I've read her diary. I have it at Sookie's. She was devastated. Her entries were clear, thoughtful then became . . . nothing but scribbled words after your death. She died in 1874 and buried in the old Douglas cemetery in North Carolina. I never thought you could die from a broken heart, but Rose sure did. She loved you dearly," she said, then stood up.

When Abby looked at Bill, she was surprised to see his eyes bloodshot, but they weren't from being hungry, like she supposed Vamps would look like when they were. They were sad, hurting and painful to look at. She looked away. "While your son, William Thomas Compton, Jr. returned here after her death, Charity had married Jeffrey Douglas. The Douglases were a well-established family, being given land by King Edward in the middle 1700's.

"The next three generations, to my father, were all males. I am the first female in over a hundred years. After I got the birth and death certificates of Jeffrey, your son-in-law, Joseph Edward, Joseph Eugene and my father, Eugene, I was floored at something. All four died between the ages of 24 and 26 years old, pretty young—too young, and they only had one child each.

"What is even stranger is that they died within one year of the birth of their child. The mothers lived a full life, though they never remarried. But, I'm the only female, and I'm 46, being born in 1962. Do I look like I'm 46?" she asked to no one in particular. "And why didn't I die at 25?"

"You look like you're no older than thirty," Sookie admitted gently and carefully.

"Right, and I don't take that as a compliment. I've never had children, so I don't know if that's why I didn't die young—after a child was born to me." Her voice trailed off and she leaned against Sam, who put his arm around her waist.

"Jeffrey Douglas was the Shape Shifter," Bill said, almost too quiet, but he was heard.

"That's why you asked about a Vampire and human having the same DNA," Sookie said, "the side effects."

"Yes, to both. In tradition of the time, and of her mother's, your daughter, Charity, kept her own journal. She knew there was something 'off' with Jeffrey, but she could never put her finger on it. Whenever she'd speculate one thing, that would be disproven, then she'd think of something else. But regardless, she loved him, as did all the Douglas wives. She knew he was different somehow, but she didn't care.

"My father left me a letter, though it explains very little. I knew what I was—am, I found that out the hard way. But I got no answers, until now." She looked up at Sam, her face soft and her voice gentle. "I found the deed of the property Jessie owned, and came here to see what more I could find."

When Abby finally looked at Bill again, she gasped when she saw a stream of blood drip from the inside corner of his eye. "I thought . . . Vampires can cry?"

"Oh, my apologies," he said ashamed as he dug a handkerchief from his back pocket.

It was folded in fours, and he opened it to wipe the tear from his face. Abby's chin dropped further. She stepped to Bill, more confidently and less afraid of him then dug something out of her purse. "I believe this belongs to you," she said, handing an old, faded handkerchief to Bill. "It's yours now."

It was now Bill's turn to drop his chin in awe. He saw the initials WTC embroidered in light lavender and blue in a corner. He exposed the corner of his cloth, which had RAC. "These," he began, his voice audibly shaky, "are from our wedding day." When Bill looked into Abby's eyes, he saw tears brimming in her eyes. "Rosie asked me to carry it with me when I went off to war. No, Abigail, I insist you keep it."

She was silent for a moment before she said, "Bill, she was your wife. I want you to have it." He smiled, however tersely, and took it from her. She stood there, in front of her ancestor—her dead ancestor, and asked, "Uh, would it be safe for me to hug my Great, Great, Great, Grandfather?"

Bill smiled, this time genuinely adoringly. "It would be my honor and upmost duty."

A tear fell from Abby's eyes, as well as Sookie's, she admitted later, then another, then another. She threw herself into Bill's waiting arms and sobbed as she had never done before. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she kept repeating in between her body convulsing from the emotional release.

Only when Abby calmed down did Bill pull away and wiped the tears away, "Why are you apologizing?"

"Be . . . cause I . . . the way I treated you."

"Dearest child, I have been treated far worse," he replied as he brushed the hair from her forehead and softly kissed it.