She read the next letter several times, trying to absorb it all, understand it fully. But it was hard, because she knew it meant that she would never see him again.

Dear Abby -

I remember Pompeii now. The last piece is in place, and my memory is whole again, and so am I, because now I understand what must happen here. So let me tell you. The Persian, the vampire who had come to visit the Sybil, and seemed an old (very old) friend of hers, told her that he had learned some magic in the East that could make them both mortal again, but he needed me for it. He told her we had to go to his townhouse in Pompeii. She had foreseen that Pompeii would be destroyed, and he expected that too, and said it was part of his plan. They had both grown so weary of their long, long lives, and wished to die. I can see that now.

When the eruption started he had his adult servants hold me down on a table, and pulled up my robe. He told me he was going to give me a great gift, make me immortal, trade his own immortality for my mortality, and I would see centuries of wonder. 'But the magic', he said, 'requires the testicles of a virgin boy.'

Then he cut my balls off. I didn't see what he did with them; I was too busy screaming, from a pain unlike anything I could ever have imagined, and I looked up only at the ceiling. Then he was saying something to the servants, and grasped my wrists, and they released me and ran. He bent over me and bit my neck, and I felt my blood spurt out, and as he drank deeply from me I gradually felt the Change begin, even through my pain. Then a beam fell from the ceiling as the earth shook, and hit him in the back; he twisted to the side and fell to the floor. I found myself rolling off the table, and – I don't truly know how I did this, with so much pain and so much blood lost – I ran out onto the street before he could free himself. And there I fell, bleeding and dying, as I transformed.

Now for what I have realized. I believe the Hindus and Buddhists have it right - our souls can come back. Carla was the Sybil, all those centuries again; Stephen was the Persian. Time and fate - synchronicity - have brought us together again, and we will finish what we started two thousand years ago. One of two things will happen: I will die, or I will find a way to transcend this world, to escape it. Carla has a role to play in this, and her ex-husband Stephen, and the people of Junction too. This is unfortunate for them, and I know it does not sound compassionate. But if I am right, I will be gone from this world one way or another, and there will be no more blood spilled by me. We three are bound together, psychically, and who knows what we might become together? I am going to make Carla a vampire, and then we will wait for Stephen and his friends.

I have been in this world too long. Five centuries of regret and loneliness, since those days in France, are enough. I hope you find what you are looking for.

When the news came, then, just a day after the letter, it was no surprise. Not really. They hadn't made the Timmy Valentine connection just yet, and so it was another disaster story. Thomas brought her the newspaper when she awoke that evening, and said simply, "I'm sorry, Abby," and left her. It was front-page news, but not a very long article; there had simply not been time yet, it seemed, to gather more information:

Idaho Town Engulfed by Inferno

The small town of Junction has been completely destroyed by a massive blaze, according to search helicopter crews and rescue teams moving into the area. The fire was first observed late yesterday evening and burned fiercely through the night, according to observers. Rescue operations have been hampered by heavy snows on the few roads leading to town, but helicopter teams have confirmed that almost every structure in town seems to have burned. The town population is about 300 persons, but no survivors had been spotted as of early this morning.

It's over. Oh Timmy, why did you let this happen? My friend is gone. She sat despondent most of the evening, refusing to engage Thomas in conversation; soon he went out. He had not returned by the time the local news came on late that evening, and now the celebrity angle was there, guaranteed to move a story to the front of the program.

"Child superstar Timmy Valentine is missing and feared dead in the massive blaze that engulfed the small mountain town of Junction, Idaho, last night," the announcer intoned. "Members of the young celebrity's entourage confirmed that he was in residence at a recently purchased vacation home there at the time of the blaze." Aerial shots of a charred landscape of burned-out buildings. Then a shot of a larger home, a mansion really, atop a rise. The upper floors had apparently collapsed into the lower; there were still small blazes burning in the wreckage, columns of dark smoke rising. "Valentine had been in seclusion since a tragic accident at the end of his last tour stop in Florida left several dead, and has made no public appearances since that time. Our sources now confirm that his therapist, New York psychoanalyst Carla Rubens, was with him in Junction at the time of the blaze." No mention of Rudy – perhaps he had not been there. "The search for survivors continued through the day, but none were found. A number of bodies have already been recovered, including several at the site of the Valentine mansion."

Abby simply tuned it out at that point. She headed outside, onto the front porch, and stood gazing up at the dark night sky. And the darkness that for so long had seemed her only true friend – the only one that lasted, anyway - wrapped itself around her. Dead. Burned up. It didn't have to be this way. And now I have no friend, again.

Thomas returned early in the morning, well before sunrise, and presented her with a jug of red fluid. She drank slowly – it seemed she had lost her appetite; was that possible? But it really felt that way – and finally set it aside, half-finished. "I'm going for a walk" was all she said to him, and she headed out across the fields, no destination in mind, her thoughts spinning. I can't have a friend, can I? Not ever. Someone will catch up and kill them in the end, if they're…like me. Or they'll simply run away, when they find out what I am, if they're human. Why did I think I could have friends, not be so lonely? Timmy thought he could be friends with humans, too, and look what happened to him. She wandered aimlessly for hours, only turning back towards home with her awareness of the distant sun creeping closer far over the edge of the Eastern horizon. Then, she pulled out the picture Timmy had sent her all those months ago from the drawer where she stashed it – the one with Timmy in his oh-so-cute little Dracula cape, sitting on the edge of a fake coffin, fake plastic vampire fangs protruding from the corners of his mouth. She found she couldn't bear to look at it, not now, not after all Timmy's little look-at-me-I'm-a-vampire stunts and gimmicks and promotional tie-ins had led to this. Not now. She put it away again, turned upside down; she didn't want to see it at all.

She didn't care to read or watch the news very much the next night, or the night after, for more than a few minutes. She only skimmed the newspaper stories. It was no surprise at all that investigators were calling the blaze deliberate; apparently many of the homes and businesses in Junction had propane tanks for winter heating, and many of these had, it seemed, been deliberately detonated – sending fireballs sweeping through buildings and nearly razing the whole town. Another fact intruded more on her morose thoughts, though. "Timmy Valentine's body has not been found, although he has not been seen since the fire, and two members of his staff – his chauffeur and bodyguard, Rudy Lydick, and his housekeeper – confirm he was in residence there." No body. Is it possible? Are they mistaken? She allowed herself a flicker of hope. Then she thought Rudy, where were you when he needed you? Why weren't you there? What happened?

Finally, she was able to talk about it briefly with Thomas. It was early in the evening, three nights after she first learned of the events in Junction. Thomas took the initiative, hesitantly, clearly not wishing to antagonize her in any way.

"Abby…if you want to talk about it…"

"What's to talk about? He's dead. Ashes. Gone."

"I know. And I'm sorry. I know you liked writing to him, getting his letters, seeing him…I'm just sorry you lost that. Because I see it hurts you."

"You were always against me seeing him, staying in touch with him."

"Yes. I won't deny it. I just wanted to keep us anonymous and safe out here…Timmy was anything but anonymous, and it clearly wasn't safe. But I don't want to say anything against him. Because…well, again, I know he meant a lot to you. What hurts you, hurts me. Because I don't want to see you unhappy. I don't have anything more to say about it."

She paused, then said "Thank you," and walked over to him and hugged him. She pressed up against him, and he pressed back, and it felt good to have that contact. Both of them, it seemed, had fallen away from that, rarely touching, and now she realized how much she missed that. It still seemed awkward, because so much seemed to lie unspoken between them now, an estrangement she didn't know how to deal with. But for a few moments, at least, that fell away, and it almost seemed like old times again.

Several nights later, when she awakened, she heard voices in the kitchen. Someone is here? When she walked into the room, there sat Rudy Lydick, sipping a cup of coffee, while opposite sat Thomas, his own cup untouched. He did not look happy. But Abby found her heart leap up, because Rudy had also come to seem more like a friend to her. "Rudy! I'm so glad you're safe!" Then she found herself looking around expectantly, and she knew why, and even though she knew it was irrational she hoped to see Timmy standing there too, whole and safe, smiling at her, telling her she had been right. The feeling quickly snuffed itself out; of course he wasn't there.

"Rudy," she said. "What happened to Timmy? What happened in Junction? Is he.." - she forced herself to ask it – " dead?"

"Dead? I don't know, Abby," he said, and she noted that the "Miss" was gone – he was slipping out of the polished chauffeur role he had played with Timmy. "But he is gone."

"What does that mean? Why would he be gone, unless he's dead? What happened? Were you there?" Her voice was rising now, insistent, and demanding, and Rudy spoke again.

"It was almost nightfall. Maria the housekeeper and I were there with Timmy. He had already bitten Carla, turned her into a vampire, and she had not yet awakened. The whole town was ablaze, it seemed, and they were coming up the hill. The hunters – the man from Los Angeles, Zottoli, and the English group that came in Florida, and there were some townspeople as well. They had all joined together, and they were coming to kill Timmy." Abby's mind suddenly flashed back to the Bloodsucker game – the ever-increasing number of Van Helsings that relentlessly pursued Timmy. But Rudy was going on. "I asked him if I should get the guns, and Timmy said 'No. Let them come. Do nothing to stop them.' 'Master Timmy!' I said. I was stunned. And then he spoke to Maria and I – he told us not to be sad, to weep for him. He said that he would either die, or transcend this world." Just what he wrote to me, Abby thought. "He thanked us, for loving him, for all we had done for him, and he told us to leave. He said a will was in the safe at the Superior Sound Systems office in Los Angeles. He said we should go, save ourselves, and he would see what fate had decided for him."

"And that's it? You just left him? When they were coming to kill him?" Abby heard her voice rising, the anger burning through. But Rudy Lydick was not a man easily intimidated by angry vampires, it seemed. He regarded her coolly and sipped his coffee, then continued.

"I always did what he asked, Abby. Sometimes I advised him to do something different from what he planned, but when he gave an order, I always did it. I disposed of the bodies, and I cleaned up the blood, and for more than 20 years I did all that he asked. He believed that when he and Carla and Stephen Miles, her ex-husband, who was one of the hunters, were all together again, then they would complete a psychic triad of sorts – animus, anima, nemesis, as the Jungians would call it – male, female, and enemy. And together, perhaps, they would become something new. Perhaps that sounds crazy, but he was many centuries old, you know that. Perhaps he had gained some insight into the psychic workings of the human mind, and this collective unconscious Carla talked about really did have the psychic power to do what he hoped." He paused, briefly. "Or perhaps he was just wrong, and he is truly dead now. I just don't know."

Rudy held up a large thick envelope that had been resting by his hand. "This is for you." He passed it to Abby, and she tore it open. Inside there was a wad of money, and a letter-size envelope, with her name on it. She looked at it a moment, but did not open it; she would not read it here, in front of the two of them. She knew it was Timmy's last words to here, and that would be something private, for later. She flipped through the stack of money and then passed it to Thomas, who did the same.

"Fifty twenties", he announced. "One thousand dollars." He looked at Rudy and raised an eyebrow.

"Timmy gave this to me when he told Maria and I to leave Junction," Rudy told them. "He must have prepared it that same day. About the money – he said you had never asked him for anything, Abby, and had given him friendship. When you become wealthy, and a celebrity, you suddenly find a lot of people who want to be your friend, and spend a lot of time hanging on to you, and find a lot of reasons to beg or borrow money. He liked it, that you never did that. So – this is strictly money 'under the table', as they say here in America. There is no record of it anywhere, nothing to trace back to you two or this address. Use it as you will."

"Well," Thomas said. "Alright then." He paused. "Thank you."

Rudy nodded at Thomas, then put down his coffee and stood up. "There was a will in Los Angeles, and it provides very generously for myself, and for Maria, and – you may be interested to know – makes some very generous donations to several charities for abused and neglected children. At some point, Timmy will be declared legally dead. I do not think they will ever find a body if he was caught in the fire; I think he would have burned like a torch, to ashes, dust, and nothing more. But if he was right, and found another way to escape, I do not think he will ever be back." He headed towards the door, then turned to look at them once more before walking out. "It was a pleasure to know you, Abby. Good luck to you. Good luck to you both."

A few seconds after he had walked out, Abby leapt up and ran after him. He was approaching what had to a rental car, a white sedan, when he heard her stepping up behind him and turned.

"You said he thanked you for loving him," she said, looking him in the eye. "Did you tell him that you did?"

Rudy seemed taken aback, unsure how to respond. "Why – I – well, he didn't actually ask, he just said it, he - "

"Did he ever ask? Ever?"

"Well – actually, in all the time we were together – yes. Once. This last summer." He was clearly hesitant to speak of it. But she had to know, because she was suddenly sure what Timmy had really wanted, all along.

"And what did you say?" God damn you, Rudy Lydick. If you let Timmy die without ever hearing that you loved him, I will rip your heart out. And eat it.

Something of the fierceness she felt must have shown in her face, her eyes. Rudy looked away from her, then down at the ground. He sighed.

"It was when Kitty had started her rampages – she had attacked and killed a group of surfers in an isolated cove, one night. I had been following her, monitoring her activities, and I got Timmy and brought him in the limousine to see what she had done." Abby suddenly recalled that Timmy had told her about this same event, in one of his letters. "We were sitting in the car, and he was so very angry at Kitty – he said he wanted to put a stake through her heart himself, right then. Then he suddenly said 'Do you love me, Rudy?' And I was surprised – it was so unexpected. I looked up into the rear-view mirror, and he was looking at me – our eyes met. I didn't say anything – I wasn't sure what to say. Why was he asking, why then? And then he said it again – 'Do you love me?' And after a second, I said to him, 'What need do you have for love, Master Timmy? Are you becoming like them?' And he said 'That is what I am afraid of.' Nothing more." He finally met Abby's gaze again. "And then we talked about Kitty, what to do about her, and that was it. We headed back to the mansion. And he never asked again."

"Damn you." Her voice was a hiss. "Why couldn't you just say it to him? WHY?"

Now Rudy did seem a little intimidated, and stepped back from her. But he did reply.

"I was always grateful to him, Abby, and always loyal."

"Gratitude and loyalty are not love. Did you love him? Ever?"

She understood, now, what Timmy had really wanted by becoming a pop star. It wasn't the money - he had never had a big plan about what he and Rudy would do with it when he had to stop being Timmy Valentine the superstar. It wasn't that he had wanted to draw the hunters to him, that he wanted to die, either; she realized now that he simply did not care whether he died or not. In her mind she could see Timmy, as they had stood together atop the Sears Tower in Chicago, and she could hear his voice. 'They love me, Abby, don't they?...they scream out my name, they write letters and tell me they love me.' And she could picture him with his fan letters, reading them over and over again, girls telling him how much they loved him, how they wanted to be with him. And that was it, wasn't it? Suddenly she realized something of what he must have felt at his concerts, the crowd chanting his name, fans calling out 'Timmy! Timmy! I love you!', and him drinking it all in. Just as he drank in blood to feed his body, he must have drunk in those voices to fill the loneliness and emptiness deep inside him, to push it back, to imagine that all those people did love him, that he was wanted, not feared and hated as a monster. And she imagined, too, that she could hear him in his limousine, leaning forward, his boy's voice high and vulnerable – 'Do you love me, Rudy?' – and the answer he had gotten – 'What need do you have for love, Master Timmy?'

Rudy had still not answered her. Finally he said, "I gave him everything I could, Abby. Everything I had. Now my life is my own again. I will see what I can do with it. Goodbye, Abby."

The anger poured out of her like water down a drain, to be replaced by a profound sadness for Timmy. She watched Rudy get in the car and drive away, until the taillights had dwindled to nothing in the distance. Oh Timmy. They finally killed the monster, didn't they? Except the monster was really just a lonely boy that wanted to hear someone say 'I love you', and mean it, before he died. And even the human closest to you couldn't just say it to you.

She turned and saw that Thomas had come out on the porch. How much had he heard, standing there? She knew, though, that she did not have the courage to ask him what Timmy had asked of Rudy. Once, decades before, she would have been certain of how he would have answered. Now? She was afraid, she knew. Afraid of what she might hear. She passed him without a word, going back inside, and headed to her room, and sat down to read Timmy's last letter.

Dear Abby –

If you are reading this, I am gone. I am sorry I could not be the friend you wanted to have. Don't feel sad for me. Whatever has happened, I have escaped the remorse and loneliness the centuries have placed upon me. You wrote to me that perhaps I was lucky that I had lost my human feelings, my humanity, for so long, because it gave me the strength to go on. But – I don't like saying this to you, but I have to – you are wrong. I was not lucky. For more than 500 years, since those nights and days in France, I have tried to regain what humanity I could, and it has not worked. With no name to hold on to, with no one I could be with more than a few years at a time, I have wandered in a sea of humanity and never been able to completely be a part of it.

If I have died, then perhaps I can become human again. Perhaps the universe takes our souls and spins them out into the world again, and I will be reborn, and have another chance. Because I think we still have souls, you and I. How else could we feel so much, so strongly?

You have held on to your human feelings and to your real name, you never lost them, and because of that you are and always will be more human than I ever was, since that night in Pompeii. And I think you are lucky, and I envy you for that. I do not know if you will find what you are looking for, the kind of friend you want. But I think you have a chance.

Your friend, Timmy

For a long time, she looked at the piece of paper, and read and re-read it. But she was still sick at heart, and thought, How can I ever find what I want? Timmy tried it, and look what it got him. Friendship...love...someone like us can't have those things, not really. Timmy tried for so much longer than I have. He says I'm lucky I still have my human feelings. But I just feel hurt and lonely. What good do they do for me?

She folded up the paper, and slipped it into a drawer, and it felt as if a door in her heart was closing. It had cracked open so long as she had known Timmy, and behind it was hope, hope that having Timmy as a friend, someone who cared for her because of what she was, meant that she could have even more. That she really could find someone who wanted her as a friend, who loved her, in spite of what she was; who could see what kind of person she truly was.

Oh Abby. You silly girl. What a childish fantasy. Let it go.

The door inside her closed, and she thought it was closed and locked now. Why let herself wish for something so impossible? Why imagine such dreams could come true?

But behind it, there was still hope, and the lock was still ready for a key.

AFTERWORD

Two novels about a castrated boy vampire, struggling with the conflict between his vampiric and human characteristics. Who would have thought it? However, S.P. Somtow's Vampire Junction appeared in the early 80s, long before Let the Right One In. (Incidentally, it also appeared before a certain book called The Vampire Lestat by a certain Anne Rice - making it, so far as I know, the first novel to feature a vampire as a rock star, as well). It's not light on the gore, and part of the reason Somtow had trouble finding a publisher (it took him several years, I understand) might have been the themes of abuse and pedophilia that appeared, in addition to the blood spattered aross the pages. In these ways, I think it is similar to Linqdvist's work. Which is not to say that it is a better story, or better written; Somtow's style can sometimes be difficult and off-putting. But if you're a vampire fan, it's worth a read. I also happen to think it would make a hell of a movie, although (again, like Lindqvist's work) some parts of it are unfilmable. From a legal perspective, anyway, unless the director would like to be arrested. I can also say that the story never moved me nearly as powerfully as LTROI did. But once I realized that both of the stories took place in almost the identical time frame, it seemed natural to ask: what if? Boy vampire meets girl vampire, just as one is at the height of his celebrity and the other is soon to flee to Los Alamos. The events of Vampire Junction start just after Timmy and Abby's meeting and night together in Chicago, and run parallel to my own story, up to the climax in Junction. Of course we all knew that they wouldn't wind up together - each story already had its own path, and the challenge was to mesh them together yet allow each to reach its own, already written, conclusion. But I wondered how such an encounter would develop, and what such a relationship would do to Abby emotionally just before she meets the one person who really is the fulfillment of her hopes and wishes. I hope you have enjoyed reading this as much as I have enjoyed writing it.