Chapter Thirteen

It doesn't hurt to ask...

As we pulled into the parking lot outside the public library, I couldn’t help but think of the last time I’d visited a place called the Library and a smile tugged at my lips. I quickly suppressed that thought, though. It would only be distracting.

Milly led the way inside. Out of the two of us, she was the only one who would have any clue where to even begin searching. Of course, she made it simple when she strolled up to the front desk and asked where the public history section was. The lady behind the desk didn’t look like your typical librarian. Her blond hair was cut short and contemporary and she was dressed rather fashionably.

“Thanks, Billie,” Milly called out as we headed in the direction she’d pointed us.

“You know the librarian by name?” I asked.

She shrugged. “Yeah. I used to come here all the time. My parents didn’t get internet in the house until I was sixteen so I had to come here to get online.”

I shook my head. “So how are we gonna do this?”

“I figured you’d freak if I told Billie what we were looking for,” Milly said. “So I figure we’ll just pull books with likely titles and flip through the index. If Iriy Hills is listed we’ll go to the page number and see what it says.”

“Huh,” I said. “It’s not a bad plan.”

“It may take some time, and it isn’t very wieldy,” she went on. “But it’ll work and keep what we’re doing secret.”

“Hey, it works for me.” I was no stranger to research. I knew it took how long it took. “Let’s get to it.”

“Oh my God,” I groaned. “I’d forgotten how excruciating history books can be.”

Milly sighed, one hand absently rubbing her temple. “These are even worse than normal. It’s like they hired the most boring writers around to do the local history, I swear.”

“Maybe that’s exactly what happened.” I lowered my voice. “The vampires made sure the books would be so dead boring no one would care.”

We plowed on for a few more minutes, me scribbling down notes on one of those long note pads libraries everywhere seemed to have. Periodically, Milly would rip little pieces off of hers to mark pages with. Eventually we thought we had enough of the story to compare.

“Okay, so here’s what we have,” Milly said. “Couple hundred years ago a community of immigrants took up in the hills above town. They were led by some Russian guy with a name I won’t even attempt, and lived in peace for some time.”

I glanced down at my notes. “I guess that was okay for awhile, but then the town started growing and there were territory disputes.”

“It was more than just that,” Milly cut in, tapping a tome. “According to this there were religious clashes too.”

“Really? Mine never mentioned that.” In fact, the idea of vampires at church had never occurred to me at all.

“Uh-huh.” She flipped open to the pages she had marked. “Apparently the people in Iriy Hills were still pagans, and the townspeople didn’t like that much.”

“Well, Christians never could leave well enough alone.” I sighed. “No offense.”

“None taken.”

“Anyway, whatever the cause, violence between communities started flaring up pretty bad, and listen to this,” I said. “Whenever anyone from town went missing they said that Iriy Hills was responsible.”

“Which sounds like typical slander to me,” Milly said.

Nodding, I had to give her that. “True, but considering that would fit vampire M.O. I’m inclined to believe it.”

“You prejudiced son of a bitch,” she quipped.

I shrugged. “So sue me.”

She shook her head and went on. “You happen to be right though, several people did go missing without a trace, and that’s not even the weird part. Does your book say what stopped the fighting?”

“No.” I quickly scanned my notes. “Just that they reached an agreement and things settled down.”

Excitedly, Milly said, “The agreement was that anytime someone in town was shamed or disgraced, such as a young woman getting pregnant, Iriy Hills agreed to take them in so as not to give the town a bad name. How weird is that?”

I stared off, mind racing. “That’s actually…kind of brilliant.”

She looked at me.

“Well, think about it,” I said slowly. “You’re some young girl in love, just knocked up, and with the attitudes of the day everyone you thought loved you would be going out of their way to disown you. Then these people you don’t even know can give you a home and safety and care for your child. You might be so grateful you would buy into whatever story they sold you.”

By the time I finished Milly was nodding. “Yeah, I can see that. And it wasn’t just pregnant girls. Sometimes it was actual criminals, people that lost their homes, orphans, and people ‘convicted’ of other ‘sexual perversions.’”

“Gee,” I drawled. “Wonder what that could mean.”

“I just don’t know.”

“Actually my book did mention it in a rather oblique way,” I said, looking back over some pages. “After the two sides came to the agreement the town got a reputation for being the most crime-free and ‘morally upright’ area in the state.”

“Never let it be said vampires are stupid.” Milly shook her head. “So they take in all these abandoned people, adopt them into the community, and turn them into vampires once they’ve been won over.”

“It bolsters their ranks without the suspicion of missing people.” I drummed my fingers on the table absently. “Like I said, kind of brilliant.”

“So what are you gonna do now?”

I sighed. “I dunno. I might call my contacts and see if I can get some blueprints rounded up. Can’t go sneaking around without knowing where I’m going.”

Milly opened her mouth, then hesitated.

“What?”

“I just had a thought,” she said. “What if you could get Ira to take you there?”

I chewed on that mentally for a few seconds. “I don’t think he would,” I said finally. “If they’re as secretive as you say, it would take more than one date to get that close to him.”

“Maybe not,” she said. “You’ve already met his mother.”

“Yeah, but that’s because she owns a diner,” I said. “I don’t think he took me there specifically to meet her.”

She shrugged. “Whatever, it was just a thought.”

“Besides, we never exchanged numbers.” Which I’d forgotten until just now. “I don’t know if I could contact him if I wanted to.”

“You know where his mom is,” Milly pointed out.

“True,” I said.

“And there’ll be pie.”

“I guess it wouldn’t hurt to ask her.”

She grinned. “I thought you might say that.”