Chapter 19
Arthur almost laughed. He almost choked. Then he almost did nothing at all.
Finally, he turned slowly to blink at Salvatore, words failing him. Sal’s expression was inscrutable, brow furrowed, jaw set, eyes blank.
As if from a distance, Lore’s voice penetrated the fog.
“I have to tell the sheriff now.” Her arm floated up, like she meant to pat Arthur on the arm, but then she let it fall to her side again.
Maybe she didn’t want to comfort an alleged murderer.
Maybe she thought he’d hurt her, too. “Just wanted you to find out without him staring at you.”
White noise flooded Arthur’s ears in the absence of her voice as she exited to the hall and closed the door behind her with a sharp click. For the first time, Arthur understood why dentists’ offices could be so terrifying. The room suddenly seemed all sharp edges and gleaming metal with no way out.
The dental records matched. And he had no alibi other than being out with his husband.
McMartin wouldn’t take anything Sal said for truth.
He briefly considered whether Nora might vouch for him, but realistically, she had no more knowledge of his activities the night of Brody’s attack than he had of hers.
Not to mention, the sheriff wasn’t wrong that their discovery of Brody looked suspicious from the outside.
And now Brody hovered on the brink of death in some hospital room, and there was nothing Arthur could do about it.
The town would think him guilty. There was no way out of this mess.
In seconds the sheriff would come in and arrest him.
Tomorrow the FPI would show up and he’d go to prison forever—which was a very long time for a vampire.
“That’s it, I suppose,” Arthur said, words duller than all the wooden instruments in their house.
It didn’t make sense. Arthur hadn’t bitten Brody.
Which meant someone else had. There had to be something he hadn’t accounted for, something important, but he couldn’t shake off the fear enough to chase the thought.
An altogether unpleasant creaking sound jolted Arthur from his thoughts, and he turned to see Salvatore shoving the window behind them open farther.
“Out we go, then,” Sal said almost cheerfully, pointing below at the stretch of woods behind the building, the tree line reaching out to touch the parking lot like viridescent hands.
Arthur blinked and swallowed. “What?”
“I, for one, have seen quite enough of Sheriff McMartin for a lifetime.” Salvatore returned to where Arthur stood and took his hand, trying to pull him toward the window and the fresh spring air wafting in. “Let’s get out of here.”
“But they’ll find us at the inn.” Arthur didn’t move, didn’t let Sal drag him to the other side of the room. It seemed impossible that there could be any escape for them now. It was over.
“We’re not going to the inn.” A twinkle sparked in Sal’s eye. “Don’t make me defenestrate you. You know I’ll relish it and tell the story forevermore if you don’t get a move on.”
Normally, Arthur would have complained at the indignity of such an act.
Salvatore had never shied away from recounting the many windows he’d escaped through over the years as well as the salacious situations he’d skirted, but Arthur had always preferred to face his problems head-on.
He pleaded internally for his brain to spring into action, to concoct a plan so brilliant and dazzling that even Salvatore with all his glitter body paint would pale in comparison.
But Arthur’s mind cycled over and over like a misaligned bike chain, rattling and going nowhere.
Instead, there was only the old, familiar fear of villagers with pitchforks and torches, outdated though the imagery was.
“I’ll go first, then,” Salvatore said with a comforting pat on Arthur’s shoulder. “Show you how easy it is.”
His leg was halfway out when the door to the exam room burst open.
The sheriff spent only a moment taking in the scene, then he fumbled for his gun. “Stop right there!”
A moment after McMartin finally got his gun free from its holster, he seemed to remember Arthur and Salvatore were vampires, so unless he was going to shoot wooden bullets (or rolled-up Coexist bumper stickers), it wouldn’t do much good. He shoved the gun away and lunged at Sal.
Arthur should’ve stopped him, but he was still frozen with fear.
Fortunately, Sal was a lifelong expert at being caught trying to climb out various windows to avoid angry people.
He dodged the sheriff’s attack, coming back into the room completely, then actually rolled like some sort of action hero to get behind McMartin.
When he stood up, he was beside the sink and cabinets.
He pulled open a drawer, reached in, and withdrew something that he brandished at McMartin like a weapon.
It was a cheap paddleball toy with a cartoon molar printed on both sides and a speech bubble proclaiming Brush it off!
So, Dr. Young did have prizes after all.
“What are you going to do with that?” McMartin said, crossing his arms. “It’s over, bloodsuckers. You’ve been caught.”
The sheriff took a menacing step toward Sal. Arthur snapped out of his stupor.
“It’s me you want,” he said loudly, then jumped out the window.
Unlike Salvatore, this was his first time leaving a room not through the usual means of a doorway.
Fortunately, the building was only one story, so the drop wasn’t so bad.
Even in his frozen mental state, he had the wherewithal to bend his knees as he landed on a patch of clover, crushing the pale pink blooms under his shoes before toppling forward onto his knees.
The impact sure was something, though after the initial shock abated, Arthur ascertained he was unhurt.
Above, the distinctive sound of cheap wood hitting flesh came, and McMartin shouted a curse. Salvatore joined Arthur in the clover patch, landing with much more dignified grace than Arthur had managed.
“Thanks for the distraction,” Sal said, grinning. “Now, this next part is essential to any daring escape.”
“What is it?”
“We run!” Sal took Arthur’s hand and pulled him along. The sheriff’s yells faded, but then the sound of his car’s obnoxiously loud engine filled the air. He wouldn’t be far behind, unless he couldn’t find them.
Vampires weren’t particularly fast during the day, but the upside to being dead was their muscles didn’t tire.
Arthur ran with Salvatore, following his directions without paying much attention to where they were going.
He could count on his fingers the number of times Salvatore had actually given Arthur orders, let alone the times Arthur had acquiesced.
Control was his comfort, and now, without it, he had only Salvatore to guide him through the chaos.
“Can’t believe we’re doing this hike again,” Salvatore said as he steered Arthur toward a secluded trail. “I swore I’d never let you convince me to come back here, but then I suppose my promises have never been all that reliable.”
Arthur glanced at the trailhead sign as they passed. Trident Falls Trail. It would take them to the waterfall that gave the town its name. Annoyance filtered through his numb mind, at last breaking the repeating loop of Lore saying Arthur’s fangs were a match to Brody’s wound.
“Oh no,” Arthur said under his breath.
They’d hiked this trail once before. It had been the end of summer, a warm and muggy night after a hot and blistering day shortly after moving to town.
The bugs hadn’t seemed to mind that he and Salvatore were undead.
Sal, of course, waxed poetic about mosquitoes while they buzzed annoyingly around Arthur’s head, not biting him but seeming intent on making pests of themselves nonetheless.
Now the cool air beneath the trees was free of bugs.
Little purple and orange wildflowers bloomed along the path between patches of sorrel, harkening the arrival of spring.
When Arthur had visited this place when he was young, his father had told him the leaves tasted like sour apples, and he’d chewed them all day until he got sick.
Now he was sick just looking at them. This would be the last chance he had to see any of this.
Even now, the sheriff must be searching for them—for Arthur—and tomorrow the FPI would add their resources to the effort.
They’d need to be more than out of town by then; they’d need to be out of the country.
“Where will we go?” Arthur asked, snapping his head up to focus on the trail ahead. “We’ll have to get out of the States.”
“I’ve got some ideas.” Sal looped his fingers through Arthur’s.
“Of course, it will have to be a country with legalized gay marriage. But not Canada—I’m still wanted for that little misunderstanding in the seventies, I expect.
We might try somewhere in Europe. Amsterdam is quite nice, though people are so very tall there.
” He frowned, no doubt thinking of the staircases and bicycles that were all made for people much taller than him.
“I like the idea of Belgium as well, though I’ll need to brush up on my Flemish.
They just have such delectable chocolates. ”
As Salvatore rambled on, listing the pros and cons of different locales, Arthur couldn’t help but drag his feet.
Salvatore was so worldly—such was the way of things, he supposed, when one survived for multiple centuries.
But despite their jet-setting ways, Arthur had never dreamed of travel.
Instead, he’d hoped only for a quiet life running a bed-and-breakfast in the country with his love.
He didn’t want to drink expensive wine or climb the Eiffel Tower or see the Great Wall.
He just wanted to settle down somewhere quiet where he could plant hydrangeas and stay long enough to see them bloom.
But perhaps Trident Falls wasn’t meant to be.