Chapter 11

"I must be cruel only to be kind"

Silently, the two child vampires stood outside the small mobile home. They heard the woman inside praying softly...and sobbing.

Choices.

Abby stole a glance at Owen. Owen felt the glance.
"I know..." he looked at Abby with moist eyes, "she can't ever know."

Owen listened to his mother's pain and longed to rush to comfort her. But it could not be. He knew her too well. Her fragile psyche would collapse upon her. She had almost gone over the edge at the thought of him being in a cult. The possibility of her accepting the REAL truth was nonexistent...especially with her religious view of the world. Owen knew very well that she would immediately think of him as a demon from hell.

The uncomfortable thing about it was, Owen wasn't entirely sure he wasn't a demon.

So should Owen stay with his mother? Tell her he was alive and then leave, only to have her worry about him for the rest of her life? Take her with them? Tell her that he was a vampire and have her curse his name and go insane? Owen knew what happened to alcoholics that claimed monsters were after them.

There was only one real choice. A bitter choice that was not a perfect one. One last look at the trailer...the sound of his mother's despair...and they were gone. Los Alamos was suddenly a town without vampires.

February 2007

Choices. Have to live with the ones you make.

"I think it could be different now...she's better."
Abby could only stroke Owen's neck in response.
"You know there is no way to explain things to her if she sees you, Owen."
"I know it..." he glanced sideways at Abby, "I never grew up, did I?"

Abby felt a pang of guilt over the accident long ago that had made Owen what he now was...her companion, forever. It was a good thing in so many ways of course, but sometimes there would be a moment...just a small moment...when she couldn't help wondering if Owen resented her. He now shared with her what no one else ever did. Joy, laughter, and love. ...And her curse. An endless, sunless existence...A horrible craving from which there was no cure.

She had read enough to know that immortality was much desired by those who saw their end approaching...but she had lived long enough to know how it lessened the very act of living. A light that could not know the dark lost its fragile beauty. Owen did not yet feel the weight of the years...and she prayed he never would. Abby hoped she would be the reason he never felt that. After all, Owen was the reason she now enjoyed her existence. "Love to faults is always blind, always is to joy inclined" Abby thought to herself. Shakespeare was always a comfort.

"But we take care of her, Owen...she's never had to go without."
"She does have to go without me though...twenty-two years now."
Abby ran her fingers through Owen's hair. Twenty-two years seemed a very short time to her. She knew it was still a long time to Owen.

"Byron says she is happy."

Owen looked around the little pond and plucked a piece of grass from the ground where he and Abby sat. He knew it was a good idea. His best idea ever...hiring Byron to take care of his mother...it had helped her greatly. She no longer had to worry about paying bills and had stopped drinking. Byron had gotten her a nice house in a nice neighborhood in Colorado and even arranged for health care and maid service. Byron thought of everything.

He and Abby paid Byron very well for his services. The money, was easy to come by. After they had left Los Alamos in the dead of night back in 1985, their prey had changed to the human predators. And human predators usually had money...a lot of it. The movie "Scarface" had given him the idea, Owen remembered. Finding drug dealers and relieving them of their money was simple. It helped that most of them lived their lives after the sun went down. Even the ones that didn't register on Owen's radar as prey were willing to donate to Jennifer's cause...with a little persuasion.

Owen rose and reached into his pocket.
"Abby...let's call Byron."

The phone rang in the high-rise Dallas condo. A groaning man reached for the phone from the abundant pillows and soft sheets of his bed.
"Damn...must be them again..." He clicked on the phone. "Hello?"
"Byron...it's Owen...sorry to wake you."
Byron sniffed. A sarcastic remark entered his mind "When don't you wake me?" but he kept it to himself.
"Oh no problem Owen...what can I help you with?"
"Just checking to see how my Mom is doing...y'know...she ok?"
Byron rolled over and looked at the clock. Two-thirty am. He rubbed his eyes.
"Oh yeah sure...You remember we got her a new car last month, right? And I looked into that guy she was dating. He's ok...religious like her. I talked to her yesterday and she was in a good mood. I hired a guy to redecorate her house...she was full of ideas for him."
Byron waited for a response and got nothing.
"Anything else, Owen? Something else I can do for her?"
"Umm...no. I don't suppose she ever talks about me, does she?"

Byron knew he was now treading on the strange ground his clients walked. They insisted all her needs be met, but she was never to know where the money came from. It had been difficult at times over the years to avoid the subject with her.
"Well...you know I can't bring it up...but she does talk about you sometimes. She shows me pictures when I fly out there. She acts like she thinks you may be...y'know...not alive."
Another pause. Byron often thought of suggesting that Owen let her know he was ok, but he once again kept his opinion to himself.
"Well...ok...thanks Byron...for everything you do for us."

Byron Marx hung up the phone and lay back. So many of these odd phone calls over the years. He still remembered the first time those two little kids had called him up and arranged to meet him at some restaurant in the middle of the night. A Denny's or something. They claimed they had just picked his name out of a phone book. They couldn't have been more than 13 years old at the time. Both were nice enough kids but were dressed in dirty clothes and creepy in a way. The boy had looked at him intently in a focused way. Byron remembered feeling he should not cross those two for some reason. And he didn't.

It had worked out well for him. Millions of dollars involved. He helped them set up a bank account and they put money into it on a regular basis. Byron got a nice generous income from the deal. The main thing the boy wanted...and he did most of the talking it seemed...was to have his mother taken care of. Byron got in touch with her, explained that she had won a lottery, and claimed he had been assigned to manage her money. Byron, being a lawyer, had a way with words so she bought it. He just remembered to carry a bible around with him when he visited her. Earned her trust immediately with that one.

After a year or two, the kids had stopped meeting with him in person. They dropped money in his mailbox until later years when they could deposit it themselves at the bank ATM. Byron couldn't really be sure which city they lived in. The ATM records were from all over the place.

Getting the midnight phone calls was just a part of the job. Byron eventually set them up with a cell phone. He regretted that one sometimes...like at two-thirty in the morning. After twenty-odd years, Owen still had that high-pitched kid's voice...not a pleasant thing to wake up to.

All in all, it was very profitable...but the strangest arrangement he'd ever heard of.

Byron shook his head, "It's a living..." and turned over to go back to sleep.

Owen put the cell phone back into his pocket.
"She's doing good, he says."

Abby sensed his sadness. Their shared bond meant she felt it too. She leaned against him and listened to his heart beat as they both gazed at the little pond. Words were not what Owen needed so Abby offered none.

After a few minutes, Owen kissed Abby's cheek and spoke softly to her.
"Abby?"
"Yes?"
"I was just thinking...does it bother you where we live?"
Abby sat up and looked at Owen.
"Me?" she paused and smiled warmly at him, "I don't care where we live as long as you're there."
Owen touched Abby's nose with his fingertip.
"But...why can't we get Byron to get us a place? Y'know...a safe place? He could take care of everything for us like he does with my mom."
Abby brightened. After so many centuries of living the way she did, a thought like that would have never occurred to her.
"Would that work, Owen?"
"I think so...it seems like it would work. We could live anywhere we want...and even move around like we do now...but have a real home."

Abby was getting excited thinking about it now. Could it work?
"Oh Owen...I would like that!"

Owen grinned.
"So it's settled..."
Owen fished the cell phone out of his pocket.

The phone rang once more in the Dallas condo. Byron's eyes popped open.
"Oh fer god's sake!"
He rolled over and reached for the phone that was lighting up the room with its caller ID. He glanced at the clock. Three-fifteen AM. He pushed the green button on the phone.
"Yeah? Owen? That you again?"
Byron listened for a minute or two.
"Yeah...sure...I can do that..." He sat up and leaned over to pick up a pen and began to scribble on a piece of paper on his nightstand.
"Here in Dallas?...sure...privacy is the main thing, eh? A condo or a house?"

Byron waited while Owen talked with Abby. He stood up and stretched. "May as well get up...got a big day tomorrow apparently." he thought.

Owen got back on the phone. Byron listened.
"Yeah...well...I love mine...nobody ever bothers me here. ...You want a top floor? Big locks on the doors? No windows? ...Well that'll be kinda..."
More conversation on the other end. Owen returned again.
"Ok...I'll start working on it first thing in the morning. I assume you'll call me tomorrow night, right? ...I'll let you know if I found anything then."

Byron hung up the phone and laid it on his nightstand. He chuckled to himself. "No windows...those two are a pair alright." Owen and Abby never failed to surprise him. Never boring. He walked into the kitchen to make coffee.