Chapter 16
On moving day the girls rose from their coffins and began packing their clothes into their coffins.
"Amy," Ruthie said cautiously as she closed her coffin lid on her few dresses and her Bible, "since we're leaving here tonight, don't you want one look at your parents?"
"Ruthie," Amy angrily dropped a dress into her coffin, "you promised never to bring up that subject again."
"I know, but this is different. We're leaving and you'll never have such a good chance to see them again."
"We've been here all this time and I refused to see them. Why would I change my mind now?"
"I don't know. I just thought you might regret not seeing them while you have the chance."
Amy continued laying dresses into her coffin. When she was finished she slowly closed the lid and took one last look around the dark dusty room at all of the used and neglected furniture neatly stacked and covered for storage. She noticed the smell of the dirt floor, the stone walls, dinner cooking in the kitchen above them, the blood of the servants preparing the food and looked at Ruthie who sat at the table, "Let's move our lair, Ruthie, we need to feed."
"It will only take you a minute to check on your parents before we go. Then we have all night to feed." Ruthie knew she was risking Amy's temper, but still could not understand Amy's decision to remain separated from her parents even though they all lived under the same roof.
"Ruthie," replied Amy, "I have asked you many times not to urge me to see my parents. You have promised not to do so and yet you break your promise tonight. We have discussed this subject more than I would like. I don't wish to discuss it any further. The first time I left this house I left of my own free will prepared to never see my family again. I have been fortunate these last several months to be able to live in the same house with them. In fact, I have you to thank for that. I am very hungry right now and cannot trust my lust for blood not to overpower me if I see my parents or anyone else who may be in the house. Therefore, I will leave this house again prepared to never see my parents again just as I left the first time. Please, let us leave now without any more discussion regarding my seeing my parents."
"All right," Ruthie sadly agreed and biting into her arm began squeezing blood onto the lid of her coffin and rubbing it in, "I respect your decision and I won't talk about it anymore. I just wanted you to be sure."
"I am," Amy angrily bit into her own arm and rubbed the blood into her own coffin lid. Soon the coffins were small enough to carry under their arms and they exited the room and the house for the last time.
Crisp autumn air swirled leaves and dust around the vampires as they walked the two blocks to the church that would this night become their new lair. Leaves blew around them in dancing swirls and their cloaks flapped up and dropped around their bodies with the broken rhythm of the gusts. The dark stone church loomed ahead, its twin spires reaching toward the heavens in dark silence, seeming to grow larger and reach higher as they approached. Before reaching the church the vampires slipped into a nearby alley and approached the churchyard from the rear. Lights glowed from the surrounding homes, but no one could be seen from the back of the church even though from their weeks of surveillance they knew that a choir meeting was taking place in the choir loft behind the altar.
Standing at the back door of the church, their coffins under their cloaks, Amy smiled, "Let's enter our new lair, Ruthie."
"I'm still a little nervous about violating the house of the Lord this way," Ruthie said as she looked up at the church with uncertainty.
"Consider yourself searching for forgiveness for your sins. You feel guilty for your sins and feel the need to repent. What better place to repent than here?"
"I do want to repent and be forgiven," Ruthie agreed, "but because of what I am, I can't stop sinning. How can I have any hope for forgiveness when I keep right on sinning?"
"Maybe it's not a sin if you can't help sinning because of what you are," Amy set down her coffin, "let's go in and lay out our things. I'm hungry. I'll go in first and open the door for you. Maybe you'll be more comfortable about the situation when we're inside," She turned to vapor and slipped through the space below the door and a moment later held the door open for Ruthie to enter with the two coffins. They had surveyed the basement enough times to become familiar with the floor plan in the dark and quickly found their way to the room with the tapestries and velvet and silently entered. Soon the room was rearranged to fit their needs and with candles set on the tables and two chairs brought in from the furniture stored in the first room they had investigated on their initial visit to the church, their new lair was just as comfortable as their last.
Several weeks passed peacefully for Ruthie and Amy as they grew accustomed to their new lair. Ruthie began to relax about being an ongoing sinner living in the house of God. She still felt she was unworthy to boldly use a church as a lair but at the same time felt comforted in her closeness to God and studied her Bible even more diligently than ever.
In contrast, Amy's attitude toward God and heaven didn't change at all because of their new environment. She still only dreamed of Robert's return and her faith that on his return he would find her. Her needs as a vampire didn't cause her any guilt or anguish as they did Ruthie and she still strongly believed that fulfilling her earthly needs couldn't possibly be sinful even though fulfilling her need for blood made her a murderer.
During Sunday services the two vampires rested undisturbed in their dark musty lair two floors below the worshipers in the sanctuary. The music and sermons never penetrated the stone and oak that separated the living from the living dead inside the church. The evening meetings and choir rehearsals took place while Amy and Ruthie stalked the streets of the city, driven and controlled by their lust for blood. By the time the vampires returned to their lair, the churchgoers were gone and the building was dark and silent.