Laurent said nothing, as usual. Asha had been with her for nearly twelve years, but the sturdy woman was still a mystery in many ways. Beneath gray-flecked black hair, Laurent’s skin was leathery from a lifetime in the Florida sun, and her eyes were as black as Asha’s own. She didn’t talk much, but she said volumes in looks and gestures—like the one she was leveling at Asha right now, a gaze filled with unvoiced disapproval.
“Or I could go to town instead,” Asha ventured, trying to read Laurent’s eyes. “See what’s going on there.”
Still silent, Laurent rocked a few times, and Asha knew from the last decade of seeing this move that Laurent thought this was the better choice. Sometimes she wished the woman would talk more, but all things considered, maybe Laurent had seen so much that she’d just run out of words. Perhaps she’d used them all up in explaining the way of the world to Asha as she’d grown from the orphaned five-year-old whom the eccentric Cajun woman had taken in, to the Vampire Slayer she now supervised as a Watcher.
“You just listen. And watch your back,” was all Laurent said as she pushed herself up from the rocker and then went inside the shack. Asha followed, grateful to get out of the humid heat of midday. There were black beans in a pot on the unlit woodstove, and the two women ate them cold with a chunk of homemade sourdough bread. Afterward, Asha crawled onto her small bed in the corner and tried to sleep for a bit, knowing that tonight might be long and, if she found a vampire or two, physically demanding.
Were there vampires in the other parts of the country? The world? It was hard to imagine any place but this one, their small town with the one side where the white folks lived behind their painted picket fences and houses with flowerpots on the windowsills, the other side where the poor Negroes and Cajuns—the ones like Laurent who weren’t reclusive—stayed in shacks and houses that were one step above collapsing at any moment. This was the life Asha had been born into, it was the only life she knew.
But even that life had changed drastically a couple of times, once when she was five and her father had been found hanging dead from a black tupelo tree in the swamp, again two years ago when Laurent had sat her down and explained about the vampires and the Slayers and the Watchers, and told her that the last Slayer had been killed and so now it was Asha’s turn to take over. Sometimes Asha thought that was the day that Laurent had used up whatever quota of words had been given to her by God, because the woman had rarely said more than a sentence at a time since. At least Asha had finally understood why Laurent had insisted that as early as age nine, she start learning to fight. At the time, her guardian had told her it was so she could defend herself against the neighborhood bullies. She must have known the day was coming when Asha would be called.
There must be vampires elsewhere, Asha realized. She had never heard of something called a “Slayer” before Laurent had told her she was one. One thing that happened regularly in a small, mostly poor town was gossip. With little else to occupy their time, the residents talked—about anything, everything, and everyone. Stories were brought in from as near as down the road to as far away as Palm Beach and Saint Lucie counties, probably farther, although such news was reserved for the more affluent. Asha didn’t know how Laurent had found out the other Slayer had been killed, and the woman had never said. Had someone told her? Or sent her a rare piece of mail?
In any case, the previous Slayer certainly hadn’t been from around here or Asha and the rest of the people in Port Buck would have known something about it. Asha couldn’t help wonder what the nameless, faceless Slayer had been like. Had she been colored, like Asha? Or a half-breed Cajun like Laurent? Certainly not white—all the white girls Asha had seen were soft and pampered princesses who did nothing but giggle and talk about boys—Asha couldn’t imagine one of them not fainting if they’d had to face one of the twisted-looking monstrosities she’d fought, and the thought of one of them driving a stake through such a beast’s heart was laughable. Shoot, most of them don’t seem strong enough to pick up a sack of potatoes.
At least she had a purpose now, something to look forward to in her life besides the complacency of day-to-day existence in the swamp or even marriage and a handful of screaming babies hanging off her skirt. She hadn’t met any boys who interested her like that, but had she not been called as a Slayer . . . who knew what might have happened? Life around Port Buck was pretty languid, and someday Laurent would be gone; there’d always been someone else in her life—first her father, then Laurent—and the odds were probably pretty good that she would want company other than her own lonely self in the years to come. At least she’d always thought so, until her calling.
Now things were different, she felt different. If not more at peace with herself and the world, then more accepting of the way things were in it and her place in that plan, her destiny. Asha didn’t know where that destiny would take her, but that was all right, too. There wasn’t much else around here to do, so she might as well follow the path and do some good along the way.
Asha rolled over and faced the wall, feeling herself start to drift toward sleep. Her eyelids fluttered closed, then opened again, not really focusing on the cracked plaster of the wall a few inches from her face. Down at the other end of Port Buck, on the white side of town, there was a drive-in movie show, and she’d heard tales about it, how images of real people and things moved across the screen while their voices came from speakers folks hung on their car doors. The wall in front of her was kind of like that, showing semicoherent pictures from her subconscious and her half-closed eyes as Asha hung on the very edge of sleep . . . and finally slipped over.
The swamp is as green as ever, but night-dark now and filled with the hoots of owls and dark-time insects. Everything seems so much bigger because she is so small—in the eyes of a child a kitchen table can look huge—and she is only five years old. Even back then she knows the swamp and the creatures that live in it, because her daddy has taught her; what he hasn’t shared with her is how cruel a group of men can be to another, based on superficial things like skin color and religion.
Her Daddy has left her alone in their little house while he’s gone out to visit a neighbor down the road a piece. He’s done this before, and Asha knows she is supposed to stay in bed and sleep, and when she wakes up in the morning he’ll be home. Tonight, for some reason she cannot say, she disobeys and follows him instead, scampering behind him in the nighttime shadows as though they are playing hide-and-seek.
She thinks Daddy is on his way to visit the Greens, or maybe the Ropers, but he never gets there. He is walking on the side of the road, alone on the long, empty stretch between the two houses, and she is maybe a hundred yards behind when a car speeds up beside him, a black one, huge and smelly. It careens to a stop just in front and all the doors open at once, then figures garbed in white robes roll out of the automobile like bright ghosts with flapping wings. Asha sees her daddy start to run, but they are on him too quickly, as many of them as she is years old; her daddy goes down amid a hail of punches and kicks, but he is still fighting as they drag him into the underbrush and disappear. The whole thing has happened so quickly that she didn’t even have time to scream.
She is too afraid to follow, so she hides in the bushes next to the road and she waits. It isn’t very long before the white-costumed figures return, and they are laughing and joking among themselves, their eyes glittering behind the holes cut in the strange, pointed hoods on their heads. Still, her daddy isn’t with them. Finally they all climb back into the big car and drive away, and Asha doesn’t know what to do—should she look for her daddy? Or should she go home?
Asha woke with a start, drenched in sweat and slapping away a mosquito—she calls them insect-shaped vampires—that was sucking greedily at a spot on her forearm. The dream memory replayed clearly in her head instead of fading as dreams normally did. She hadn’t thought of that night in years, nor of the white-robbed figures—members of the Ku Klux Klan—and her father’s abduction. The Klan was a part of
life in Florida, and she knew it was called the Invisible Empire in the rest of the country, but it was a quiet chapter here in tiny Port Buck, not usually much in the public eye. Now and then there were rumblings about the organization regaining its strength and returning to its glory days, but nothing had happened yet—why was she suddenly remembering the night her father had been killed?
Asha sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed. The rough, clean-swept floor felt good beneath her feet, solid footing in a life that had turned upside down more than a time or two.
“Sun’ll be setting soon.”
The sound of Laurent’s scratchy voice made her blink away the last of her sleepiness. She primed the pump at the kitchen sink and rinsed her face and hands, enjoying the chilliness of the well water. Then she changed her clothes, trading the boy’s T-shirt and denim jeans for something more girlish that wouldn’t stand out. They didn’t have money for fancy here, so she’d leave the petticoated skirts and the ribbon-trimmed blouses to the town’s white girls; a simple cotton dress and comfortable shoes over hidden cut-off denim jeans would do just fine.
She brushed her teeth and fought with her hair for a bit, then gave up on the unruly curls as she stared into their only mirror. Do I look like my mother? Her mother had died giving birth to her, so she had no idea. Although some people had told Asha she was beautiful, Asha didn’t see that beauty in her own reflection. A white girl could hide in plain sight, blend in with the townsfolk, but even dressed like this, like “normal” people, Asha’s dark skin would make her stand out if she went where she shouldn’t. She would have to be very, very careful to stay unassuming.
“Here.”
Laurent pressed two quarters into her palm, and Asha frowned down at the money. “What’s this for?”
“You don’t need to be wandering the streets like a penniless waif,” the older woman said. “You’re in town, you get yourself some supper like the other teenagers.”
“No, we don’t have money to throw away on that.” Asha tried to give the coins back, but Laurent only folded her arms and looked at her sternly.
“You want to hear what people are saying, then you got to be where they’re saying it. There’s still a chance that a colored girl will just get tossed out the door, but depending on how greedy the owner is and if no one notices, your money might spend like anyone else’s.”
Asha pressed her lips together but finally nodded. Her Watcher was right—she stood a better chance visiting the local hangout if she had money than if she didn’t. “All right.” She glanced in the mirror a final time as she tucked the coins into the deep pocket on the left side of her skirt, then went back to her bed and withdrew the sharp-tipped stake from beneath her pillow. That went into the right pocket, where she’d reinforced the bottom of the fabric with a strip of heavy leather. “I’ll be back later.”
As always, Laurent didn’t say good-bye, just mumbled a few words to herself as Asha left. The Slayer wondered if the other woman realized that Asha knew what they were, had figured them out the third time she’d gone out to face the vampires—
“God willing.”
As much as Laurent could do such a thing, Asha supposed it was her way of sending her off with a blessing.
* * *
She didn’t know why, but Asha found herself following that same dark stretch of road from twelve years previous.
It had to be the dream, of course, bringing back to the surface memories that she’d thought were long held at bay by the protective shell of time. Between the dream and that same old swamp, that barrier was disintegrating rapidly—tonight might as well have been a decade ago. Déjà vu swirled through her mind, and Asha could swear the same owls hooted overhead, the same insects buzzed in the undergrowth, the same sweet smells of butterwort, orchids, and lizard’s tail hung on the night air, the same cricket frogs croaked somewhere out of sight.
Twelve years ago she had been too frightened to do anything as her father had been dragged away. She had passed this same spot hundreds of times since then, but it hadn’t been until this afternoon’s nap that she had finally made the connection between the white-costumed figures and the Ku Klux Klan. Now she would not be so timid.
Asha stepped off the road and pushed through the bushes, not making much of an effort to move quietly, almost daring someone or something to challenge her. The vegetation was dense, but there was an area where it thinned out, an old path not much used anymore; she followed it, forcing her way where necessary. Night things made sounds all around her, but they were natural, nothing to set off the alarms in her head. She could hear the bellow of a ‘gator somewhere in the distant swamp as it warned away another reptile, the splashing of water flowing over rocks in a tiny creek close by. She felt strangely excited but at peace, one with the night and about to discover some great secret.
The lush greenery abruptly ended and Asha stopped. The starry night sky was cloudless and lit by a three-quarters moon that sent a cool, butter-colored glow over the clearing she now faced. Here the ground had been trampled flat a long time ago, but sparse tufts of grass had found life again and were spreading. The undergrowth was trying to reassert itself where it had been hacked away, sending forward tentative branches of growth that would eventually tangle together and eliminate this irregular spot in nature’s plan. In the center of the clearing were two mature black tupelo trees, and Asha stared up at them, frowning. The lowermost branches of the biggest one had been sawed off to a height of eight feet; she could see the bottommost one and the lighter scar that ran around it, two feet away from the trunk where something had rubbed away the bark—
The men drive off in their big, smelly car, and five-year-old Asha crawls out of her hiding place in the bushes, moving like a skittish salamander. Her dress is torn, and she knows her face is streaked with dirt and tears, and for a little while she stands in the middle of the muddy road and wonders what to do. Where is her daddy?
She waits, but he does not come out of the trees. The night is dark and cool around her, but not as scary as those bad men in the car. She decides she would rather face a snake or an alligator than them, so she finds the space where the men and her daddy went into the woods and decides to follow it. It’s a path, easy to walk by the moonlight. She’s never done this sort of thing at night, and it’s almost fun, an adventure—
—until she reaches the clearing.
Her daddy hangs from one of the trees, swinging by a rope looped around his neck and pulled tight below his chin by the weight of his body. He is not so far up that Asha can’t see his face. It is utterly devoid of expression—his eyes are open and sightless, his mouth, lips swollen from punches, is slack and soundless. The breeze makes him swing slightly from side to side.
“Daddy?” Asha whispers, but even at her tender age she knows it is useless. She puts her small hands around his ankles and tries to pull him down, but that, too, is futile. After a while she gives up, sits on the ground below him, and cries.
Time passes, but she does not know how much. She hears movement, someone coming, and she knows she should run, but she is too tired from weeping to be scared or to care. The lone figure that steps into the clearing is small and sturdy, features shadowed by the brim of an old hat. When it steps up to Daddy’s body and looks upward, the moonlight shows Asha that it is a woman, a Cajun, and her tanned face is as lined from the Florida sun as the leather of her hat is cracked. She turns the body gently until she can see the other side, and Asha also sees what the woman is looking for—two bloody punctures on her daddy’s neck, a couple of inches below the rope.
The woman shakes her head and releases Daddy’s legs. Then she lifts Asha into her arms and carries her off into the swampy night.
All these years, Asha realized as she stared at the trees, and she had blocked that memory, hadn’t wanted to remember the way her father had looked. He hadn’t been the victim of a hanging at all—that was just an easy way to camouflage the vampire attack in this heavily Ku Klux Klan??
?infested town. And of course they wouldn’t have made her father drink and rise again—the last thing they’d want was a Negro vampire among their ranks.
The pointed white hoods where only the eyes were revealed, the near immunity the Klan enjoyed in Port Buck . . . they could feed on the coloreds, the Jews, the Catholics, and any other race or religion they decided to target. What more perfect way for a vampire community to feed and grow undisturbed than from beneath the costumes of an organization that expected its members to hide their identities behind masks? And for how long had the bloodsuckers been living behind the protection of the KKK? Ten years? Twenty? Or longer? Hangings might not be so easily brushed off anymore, but as the corpse she’d found this morning testified, there was always the swamps and the ’gators to help get rid of the leftovers. A poor and backwoods Florida town had given them the perfect method, and the perfect setting.
But not anymore.
* * *
The town of Port Buck was just as the tourists described it when they passed through—a ragged hole in the swamp with no more than fifteen hundred people stuffed into it. Most of the locals choked out a living over in Indiantown at the milling plant, the Tampa Farm Service, or the big citrus groves. There wasn’t much to bring or keep visitors, who had better things to look for in Florida than a half dozen churches and a VFW hall, a Dairy Queen, and Main Street with its standard shopping fare—grocery store, hardware store, Laundromat, a couple of struggling antique and crafts places. Visitors found that in particular they could live without the unfriendly stares of the Port Buck locals, the surly responses to requests for directions, and the repeated attempts of local merchants to price gouge on things like cigarettes and eight-ounce bottles of Coca-Cola.