lionofstone

Elaine Holmwood knew who the killer was, even if no one else knew that there was a murderer to be found. It was the same way that she knew someone was sweating over fresh graves, driving stakes into the hearts of the victims. She’d been tied up in this for ten long years that stretched out behind her like a dark veil, an ashen weight to bear. 

The victims didn’t look like victims. Their deaths weren’t gruesome or otherwise attention grabbing. They were the elderly, the anaemic, the lonely—people whose deaths wouldn’t be investigated in the same depth or with the same care as some. They went, usually in their sleep, passing from Life to Death without fuss. Then, Elaine dug up their graves and prevented them from walking the violent path that would take them from Death to Undeath. 

Maybe it was selfish, she thought, as she straightened up and wiped her dirty hands on her already grimy jeans. Maybe it was futile. Eventually, she’d die, and the deaths would keep coming. Yet by doing it, she stopped one more person from making the same choice she did ten years before, and stopped one more monster from wandering free. 

Of course, she could stop it all together, too. She didn’t. That was the selfish part. 

*

She’d met Missy West in a biology class in their fourth year of university, but she’d first noticed her in a six-week guest lecturer course about mythology and monsters. It was a night class, and almost everyone in attendance had opted for pyjamas or sweatpants, but Missy strolled in dressed in black trousers with gold buttons running up her hips and an olive green button down. Her lipstick was the colour of plums, her smile just as delicious. Everything was capped off with the river of black hair that cascaded in soft waves down her shoulders and back, not one strand out of place. Elaine had thought she was doing pretty good by wearing jeans with her white hoodie. 

Missy had always been beautiful, from the moment Elaine had first seen her. She was always fending off advances from John and Quinn and, to a lesser extent, her roommate Wila. Even Elaine’s cousin Artie had made a few flirty comments when he visited the weekend after the first mythology and monsters lecture. Missy had laughed at him, not unkindly but in a way that left no doubt of her feelings on the matter, and Elaine had snapped at him to not be disrespectful, although he hadn’t exactly done anything wrong. 

She wasn’t sure, even years later, what first drew Missy to her. Maybe it was those jeans, in a sea of stretchy waistbands and polka dots. The lecture hall was far from full, so Elaine had been sitting with her sneakers propped up on the seat ahead of her, showing off her cuffed jeans and bright red socks to anyone who cared to look. Maybe Missy had, because she’d strolled up the aisle and plopped herself into the seat right next to her. 

“Elaine, right?” Even then, Missy had said her name with a certain power, the kind of attentiveness that had the hair on the back of Eliane’s neck standing up. She nodded, and then Missy’s smile had turned relieved. “Thank God. I was worried there wouldn’t be anyone here I knew.” 

“Do you know me?” Elaine asked, cursing herself for not just going with it. 

“I recognise you. For now, that’s good enough.” 

“For now?” 

Missy hadn’t had the chance to elaborate before the professor—a woman in her early forties who introduced herself only as Irving—had begun her lecture. Elaine was only attending the short course to make up for a missed arts credit in a previous year, but as soon as Professor Irving started to speak, she found herself somewhat enthralled, flipping open a notebook and keeping it propped up on her knees as she took frantic, detailed notes. Given her reasons for joining the lecture, she was surprised by the voraciousness with which she took everything in. 

“Vampires,” Professor Irving had started, clapping her hands together once and scanning her glittering eyes over the crowd. “Why, do you suppose, do we call creatures more powerful than us monsters? From the moment that vampires entered pop culture—ushered in by the likes of Carmilla and Dracula—we have considered them such; creatures of the night, monsters, worthy of death—or, rather, re-death. What, exactly, is it about these beings that garners such distaste? Why did these creatures permeate fiction and culture? Why do they continue to do so? Perhaps—” and here Professor Irving had curled her blood-red lips in a secret smile, leaning forward over her podium as if to share some profound, if not arcane, knowledge— “it is because, to some degree, they represent what we want.” 

Elaine couldn’t have looked away from the professor if she’d wanted to, after that statement. Her notetaking was forgotten as she listened intently, making small noises of assent or protest but never raising her hand. No one else did, either. Next to her, Missy shifted forwards so her elbows rested on her knees, hands clasped loosely, long dark nails in sharp contrast to her fair skin. 

Professor Irving continued, “Much of folklore stands in for the things humans want and are afraid of wanting. Power, influence, control—subjugation of those who are lesser, and, most importantly, talent over life and death. Vampires, in their strongest mythos, represent all these things.” 

After the lecture ended, Elaine leaned back in her seat and breathed, “Wow.” 

Missy laughed, and it was obvious that she was in agreement. She twisted in her seat to face Elaine. “I’ve always liked vampires,” she said, grinning hugely. “But that was…wow.” 

For a moment, they’d just looked at each other, laughing, as the other students filed out. Then Elaine asked if Missy had ever read Interview With The Vampire, and Missy replied that she’d only seen the movie. Elaine informed her that was as good as blasphemy, and they’d spent the next two hours debating back and forth about various vampire media without moving from the amphitheatre seats. 

That was how Professor Irving approached them, a kind smile on her painted lips and a curious air about her that had both Elaine and Missy relaxing. “You two were certainly the most engaged members of my audience,” the professor said, and it sounded just enough like a joke that they laughed. 

“I’m not certain how anyone could’ve ignored you,” Missy said, flattering without it sounding like sucking up. Elaine nodded her agreement, thrice. 

Professor Irving touched both of their shoulders. “I trust I will continue seeing you two in my classes, correct?” 

“Wouldn’t miss it,” Eliane promised. 

“I am glad. Now, I must ask you to vacate the room so that I may lock it up and be on my way.” 

Missy and Elaine, both apologising profusely, gathered their things and by some unspoken yet unanimous decision, left together. From then, although Elaine could never quite determine why, they’d been the closest of friends. 

*

Professor Vanessa Helen Singer was one of those people who required a full name whenever she was spoken about. She had a large personality that simply demanded the maximum amount of syllables to even attempt to contain it—and, in fairness, Professor Vanessa Helen Singer is one of those names that demands a large personality to live up to it. She would come to work dressed in long trench coats with many pockets, spinning around dramatically while she taught and sending the fabric whirling around her.  She had a large cross tattooed from her throat down to her cleavage, though she insisted that she wasn’t particularly religious. At her desk, she kept an untidy collection of leather-bound journals embossed with words in Dutch, German, and Romanian, although she would never answer when people asked if she spoke said languages. Few people knew to ask, however, because despite her wonderfully open office hours, most students avoided her office as it was filled with strange smelling flowers and an ever-running humidifier. When she gave lectures on anatomy, she was always sure to throw in details of where best to aim a knife if you were planning to murder someone, winking at her students as if they were all in on some private joke, though no one else seemed to get it. 

She was Elaine’s favourite professor. 

Professor Vanessa Helen Singer was new to the university that year, but she had quickly risen in Elaine’s personal ranking of the professors in the science department for all of her eccentricities. Elaine was one of the few students who would approach her during office hours, always keen to have a casual chat even if she didn’t have any questions related to her academia. Professor Vanessa Helen Singer always seemed grateful for the company and would, in most cases, offer Elaine a cup of tea or bit of bread. 

On one such visit, roughly three weeks after Elaine had begun the mythology and monsters course, Professor Vanessa Helen Singer fussed over her for a longer-than-average time, muttering to herself in a language that she didn’t know. 

“Is that Dutch or Romanian?” Elaine asked innocently, and was unsurprised when the professor shook her head and tutted instead of answering. 

“You and that West girl are both taking Irving’s course, aren’t you?” 

Elaine nodded enthusiastically. “Yes! It’s been fantastic. More vampire focused than I thought it would be, but it’s fascinating. Professor Irving is a brilliant lecturer.” 

Professor Vanessa Helen Singer hummed. “And how is Miss West enjoying it?” 

“Missy agrees with me, I think. She’s always complimenting Professor Irving when she comes over to us, anyway, and we talk about the class a lot, though that might be just because that’s how we bonded.” 

“Only three weeks ago?” 

Elaine can understand her surprise. Although it had only been three weeks, she and Missy had become incredibly invested in each other’s lives. It was rare that they didn’t arrive to their shared classes together and even rarer that they didn’t leave them together, heading out in search of mutual friends or somewhere to get coffee or a place to study. Something about them had immediately clicked and they were as close to inseparable as students who live with different roommates could be. Professor Vanessa Helen Singer, who taught them for both biology and human anatomy, would have been sure to notice the pattern. She’d even walked past them a few times last weekend, when Missy and Elaine were sitting side-by-side, surrounded by their other friends. She’d waved once, and Elaine had returned the gesture before tuning back into the debate Jon and John were having over which spelling was better. Missy had been leaning on Elaine’s shoulder, whispering that she thought the whole thing was nonsense. 

Given their number of mutual friends, Elaine herself was surprised that her friendship with Missy was so new, but things happen in their own due time and, given how swiftly they had bonded together, she couldn’t complain. 

“Yeah,” she told her professor. “But it feels like longer.” 

Professor Vanessa Helen Singer smiled knowingly over her tea, but Elaine thought there was something nervous in the expression as well. She sighed and lowered her mug onto the table, then steepled her fingers and rested her chin on them. “Keep an eye on that girl,” she said carefully. “She seems like a sweet one, to… befriend you so quickly and fully, but it never hurts to be cautious.” 

“We have a lot of mutual friends,” Elaine said, feeling compelled to defend Missy and not quite knowing why. “It was probably only a matter of time before we connected.” 

“Probably,” the professor agreed. 

Elaine wanted to ask more questions, but prior experience in asking Professor Vanessa Helen Singer about anything unrelated to her studies left her certain that she wouldn’t get a straight answer out of her. Instead, she smiled, sipped her tea, and allowed the conversation to drift back to academia. 

Later, Elaine had met Missy for bubble tea and studying, and they’d ended up drawing little patterns on each other’s arms in ballpoint and highlighter. Missy always looked immaculate, and the designs looked funny poking out of her cashmere sweater. Under Elaine’s hoodie, the doodles looked right at home. It was one of the many contrasts between them and one of the only immediately obvious at a glance, but it didn’t seem to bother Missy that they looked like such a mis-matched set. In fact, as they stood, Missy threw her arm around Elaine’s shoulder and insisted that they snap a picture where their ‘hard work’ was visible. 

Elaine kept that picture in the years afterwards, even when her thumb hovered over the delete button every time she saw it again. In her darkest moments, she was tempted to print it out and frame it, keeping the memory of it close—not that it was the first or last time that they were happy together, but that it marked the beginning of the end. It wouldn’t be so long after that Missy stopped asking to take pictures. 

“We didn’t get much work done,” Elaine teased, giggling into her hand. 

Missy turned her softest smile on Elaine. “More importantly, we got to spend time together.” 

They’d spent all their free time together over the following week, watching vampire movies in Elaine’s dorm or studying for Professor Irving’s class in the library or debating about Professor Vanessa Helen Singer’s oddities on their way to dinner. This, in and of itself, was not odd. What was odd was the fact that they rarely saw their other friends during this week, preferring the one-on-one time and arriving at the weekend even closer than they had already been. 

“I don’t want to die,” Missy confessed on Sunday evening, sprawled out on Elaine’s bed while the latter flipped through a textbook on the floor. Missy’s dark hair was surprisingly mussed and she was fiddling with her necklace, looking less composed than Elaine had ever seen her. Privately, Elaine was elated that Missy trusted her enough to relax around her, to confess her secrets. 

She closed the book. “Is that a pressing concern?” 

“No, just in general.” Missy’s eyes went unfocused, staring up at the ceiling like she was observing some distant future. “I want to live forever.” 

“I don’t think I’d like that. Going on and on until the world stops? Would you really want to watch everyone you love die?” 

Missy huffed, rolling her head to the side to look at Elaine. “Don’t be stupid. I’d take you with me.” 

“That’s a very sweet sentiment.” Elaine smiled, genuinely touched and trying not to let on just how much that sentence struck her. “But what about all our other friends? Jon and Wila and Quinn and John? What about our families?” 

Elaine, of course, only had Artie and his father left, her other family long-since dead, but Missy had brothers and sisters and two living parents and one living grandparent on either side. Elaine thought that there were cousins, too, and maybe even one in the city, but Missy didn’t talk about them all that much.

“I guess you could invite Artie along, if you think he’d go for it,” Missy said in a bored sort of voice. “But for the others—do you want to listen to Jon and John argue about spelling for eternity? Or listen to Quinn’s terrible fake accent?” 

“I think he’s just Southern.” 

“Quinn’s terrible accent, then? Wila could come, maybe, but I doubt she’d go for it if Jon wasn’t around too.” Missy hummed like this was something she was seriously considering. Then her eyes went wide and imploring, lips parted on the question, “You would stay with me, wouldn’t you?” 

What else could Elaine say? She and Missy had clicked together too tightly to ever come fully unstuck, like Lego bricks that needed that special tool to pry them away from each other, except they’d been put there by some master builder creating an art piece for one of the giant stores in New York or London or somewhere, so there was superglue between the plastic. They’d need something drastic to seperate them, something that the average person couldn’t imagine. A convoluted metaphor, maybe, but Elaine tended to think of everything in terms of building blocks, and that included human anatomy and matters of the heart. 

“Of course I would,” she answered. 

Missy beamed. 

*

During the last week of Professor Irving’s course, Missy started behaving strangely. 

Suddenly, she was waving Elaine off after class and staying late to talk with Professor Irving, appearing in the morning with tired eyes and silk scarves tied around her neck. She looked haggard; pale, with bluish bruises forming under her eyes, her veins shockingly visible to the naked eye. Elaine’s concerned fussing and questions were met with vague, uninformative answers. Missy does take the offered orange juice with a soft, affectionate smile, but Elaine doesn’t see her drink it. 

“You know you can tell me anything, right?” Elaine pleaded, catching Missy by the elbow after the Thursday night class had wrapped up. 

“Of course,” Missy said, her smile tight but genuine. “I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”

Elaine nodded, unable to think of anything to say that would get Missy to stop, and let her go. 

Things got worse from there. By Saturday, Missy was obviously ill but refused to accept help. She laid up in bed, allowing Elaine to visit her, allowing talking but no food or water. When Elaine suggested helping her to the health centre or calling for a doctor, Missy grabbed her wrist and made her promise that she wouldn’t. 

“Why not?” Elaine demanded. “I thought you didn’t want to die?!” 

“I’m not dying. I’m…Undying.” 

“You’re sick.” 

“I’m getting better. Trust me.” 

Elaine made a choked sound, dropped her forehead onto the edge of the mattress. She was sitting on the floor to be eye-level with Missy, but this made her want to look away. “I do trust you. But I don’t believe that you’re okay.” 

“I’m going to be fine. I’m going to be better than fine.” Missy smiled, but it wasn’t the same smile that Elaine loved. Her gums were pulling back, pink instead of red, a visible marker suggesting that the life was draining out of her. Her green eyes were dull and dry, no sign of the light that normally filled them. Elaine made a noise that was far too close to a whimper for her to ever admit to. “Hey. I wouldn’t lie to you.”

“You don’t even know that you’re lying.” 

“I can’t know something that isn’t true.” 

The bickering was familiar, and Elaine allowed herself to be soothed by it, but it did nothing to change the fact that three days later, Missy was dead. 

The funeral came quickly. Most of her family was local, and they seemed keen to get her in the ground and forget about the whole affair. A handful of them didn’t even wear black to the event, and although Elaine knew that everyone mourned in their own way, she couldn’t help the fierce anger that boiled in her gut as she watched them stroll through the cemetery without a care for the daughter, sister, granddaughter, cousin that they were burying. Was Elaine the only one who had cared for her? If this was the state of her family, then why would Missy have wanted to live forever? 

Well, Missy had answered that one herself, hadn’t she? She’d wanted to leave her family behind. She’d wanted Elaine to join her. 

She spent the next week in a bit of a daze, barely attending her classes, though thankfully no one seemed to expect her to. Artie called her every day to tell her that she was more than welcome to come home and that no one would judge her for it, but she couldn’t bring herself to go. Her friends understood what she was going through, as much as anyone could, and she didn’t want to be without that. 

On day nine, Wila started to look faint. 

“She doesn’t want to say it,” Elaine muttered, sitting in Professor Vanessa Helen Singer’s office, cradling a cup of tea in her chapped hands, “but we’re all thinking it. What if—what if what…” She took a deep, stuttering breath, blinking hard. “What if what Missy had was contagious?” 

The professor heaved a weary sigh and looked out her window. Elaine watched her trace her cross tattoo with two fingers. “I worry that it might be,” she admitted. 

Elaine choked on a dry sob. She hadn’t had any tears left for two days. “Just what I wanted to hear.” 

“Did Miss West say anything odd to you, before her passing?” 

“Odd how?” 

“Any…strange visitors, odd behaviour, changes to her appetite? Grandiose dreams? That sort of thing.” 

Elaine, who’d been turning their last interactions over and over in her head, didn’t have to think about it. She told her professor about Missy spending one-on-one time with Professor Irving, about her insistence that she wasn’t dying, about the desire to live forever. As she talked, she realised more and more little details, oddnesses that she’d swept aside before. 

Professor Vanessa Helen Singer didn’t react until the end, when she knelt in front of Elaine and pressed a cross necklace into her hands. Elaine didn’t even see where she got it from. “Be very, very careful, Miss Holmwood. Promise me.” 

“I promise,” Elaine swore, confused and concerned, but she trusted that the professor wanted what was best for her. 

In the years afterward, people would ask why Elaine, who never was particularly religious, wore a crucifix every day. She would answer that she wore it for her friend, which wasn’t, strictly speaking, a lie. 

*

Missy came to see her in the middle of the night. 

Elaine, who’d been coming home from a library cramming session, screamed and dropped her textbooks. In an instant, Missy was in front of her, one hand pressed to Elaine’s mouth and the other gripping her shoulder. “It’s me,” she said, and her voice was the same. Her eyes were vibrant green, her hair falling perfectly down her shoulders, her lips curved into a familiar smile. “It’s just me, Elaine.” 

She dragged out the name, emphasising the ‘E’ and drawing out the ‘a’ sound, just like Missy always did when she wanted to seem especially enchanting. Not that she’d ever needed the help when she was living, and she certainly didn’t need the assistance now. Elaine could hardly look anywhere else, petrified as she was, and Missy seemed to know it. 

She smirked, easing her hand off of Elaine’s mouth and onto her jaw, then further to her neck. Her green eyes stayed locked onto Elaine’s, as though she could hold her in place with just a piercing gaze, as soothing as it was frightening. Elaine didn’t relax, couldn’t relax, all too aware of her heart racing in her chest and her palms sweating as she balled them into fists. Time moved achingly slowly, not quite frozen but nearly as cold as Missy’s fingers where they trailed down Elaine’s neck. 

Elaine shivered. 

Missy’s hand snapped back suddenly, breaking the terrifying tranquillity and giving Elaine the chance to stumble back, dazed. “What—” Missy cut herself off, raking her eyes over Elaine’s body in a searching, calculated way. “Since when do you wear a crucifix?” 

“Since when do they burn you!?” Elaine all but shrieked in reply, squeezing her shoulders towards her neck and raising her hands, fingers splayed, in front of her. 

Missy hissed, an expression as unnatural on her face as her presence in the room. 

After a beat, Elaine forced her shoulders down. “You can’t be real.” 

“I’m real. Of course I’m real.” Missy looked hurt by the implication of anything else. “I said I’d take you with me, remember?” 

“What?” Elaine drew her eyebrows together. “What, when you said you wanted to live forever?” 

“You said you’d stay with me.” 

Elaine sputtered for a moment. “That wasn’t real! That was a—a hypothetical! A what-if game! People don’t get to live forever! You died! I watched it happen!” 

Missy stepped closer again, tossing a wary glance at the crucifix around Elaine’s neck. “I told you I wasn’t dying. I told you I was undying.” 

“You—” 

“Elaine,” she said, once again in that specific Missy way, asking for her attention. “I’m okay. I’m better than that—than I ever was before. You can tell, can’t you?” 

Elaine wanted to shake her head, wanted to say that no, she didn’t see it, that Missy was nothing more than a figment of her tired mind and that she needed to go to sleep. Except… Missy had touched her, said her name, and came close to her. When Elaine looked, she could see the differences in Missy’s face. The dim nighttime light (Elaine hadn’t even had time to flick the switch) illuminated her fair skin, made her dark hair shimmer, caught in the whites of her eyes. She’d always been beautiful, but there was something dangerous about it now—obsession caught right before it became overwhelming, desire on a knife’s edge. 

“What happened to you?” Elaine asked, mouth dry and voice hoarse. 

Missy smiled, white teeth brilliant in the moonlight, two sharp fangs impossible not to notice. “You know.” 

She let out a long, shaky breath. “That’s not possible.” 

“Come on. You’re smart—think about it. Professor Irving’s night classes, the way she enthralled everyone when she started speaking? The way she talked about vampires?” 

“Missy, vampires aren’t real. That’s, like, foundational.” Elaine could feel herself being swayed even as she protested. Missy, standing in front of her, whole and powerful and not dead would be compelling evidence even to the greatest of skeptics, and Elaine had always wanted to believe there was something more out there. 

Missy clicked her tongue. “Wila believed a lot quicker. Granted, I was actively—” 

“You told Wila before me?” 

Missy softened at the hurt in Elaine’s voice, stepping closer once again. “I needed to be stronger—better—before I came to you.” 

“Needed?” 

“Of course,” Missy smiled, extending her hands face-up in front of her, reaching for Elaine’s. “I had to be, if I was going to take you with me. I couldn’t turn you if I wasn’t strong enough.” 

“Turn me?” 

Missy nodded, unperturbed. “You said you’d stay with me. How can you stay with me if I don’t turn you?” 

Elaine opened and closed her mouth. Her heart was still hammering away in her chest, but she was no longer entirely sure of the cause. Missy scooped Elaine’s hands into hers, beaming. She looked brighter than ever, as eye-catching as the first day of Professor Irving’s class—only eight weeks ago, only two months—as she offered, insisted, that she keep Elaine with her forever. 

“Just—just give me some time to think about it?” 

Missy’s smile fell, but she squeezed Elaine’s hands a last time before stepping back. “Of course. I’ll be waiting.” 

And Elaine was alone again, standing in the darkness of her room, with her stomach full of lead. 

*

“You knew, didn’t you?” 

Elaine stood in the doorway of Professor Vanessa Helen Singer’s office, one hand braced on the frame, chest heaving. She’d had the night to let her fear and anger build and realisation set in that her professor must have known, or at least suspected, what was happening to Missy. Elaine wanted to scream at her, or to hit her, and she’s only just barely keeping it together. 

“Miss Holmwood,” the professor said, gesturing to a chair. “Please, take a seat.” 

“You knew.” 

She traced her cross tattoo again. “You are angry that I didn’t tell you. That I didn’t warn you. Would you have believed me? Before you had seen it with your own eyes?” 

Elaine cursed and took the offered seat.

“I had my suspicions about Professor Irving from the moment she arrived,” she explained. “Our fields of study and instruction are, however, very different—at least as far as the faculty is concerned—so I couldn’t attend her lectures or her office without good cause. This is why I was grateful that you were going and willing to talk about it. When the course came to a close and no one had been seriously injured, I naively assumed that we had made it through unscathed. I apologise, Elaine. I truly didn’t think there was danger. I assumed I had been wrong, and that was a fatal mistake.” 

It was the first time that Professor Vanessa Helen Singer had ever called her Elaine. 

The professor sighed. “You didn’t come to see me while Miss West was sick. Perhaps if I had known the particulars of her illness…but, no. I shouldn’t dwell on the past. The fact of the matter is this: Missy West is dead.” 

“Undead.” 

“Dead. Miss Holmwood, I know this must be difficult to hear, but she is dead. The things that made her good and supportive, all the things you loved her for, are gone.” She reaches across her desk to rest her hand over Elaine’s. “They die with the curse. Even if you don’t realise it at first.” 

Elaine thought back to Missy’s appearance in her room, how she’d looked revitalised, more beautiful than ever. She hadn’t seemed as though she’d lost anything, but rather that everything about her had been enhanced, doubled or tripled in intensity. Even her smile. Even the way she’d said Elaine’s name. 

“Okay,” Elaine whispered. “But…she’s still walking around. I—I mean, she implied, at least, that she’s been visiting Wila and…well, you know.” 

The professor looked grim, with her mouth set in a thin line and a large fold appearing between her eyebrows. “We will have to stop her, of course.” 

“Have you…done this before?” 

She sighed, leaning back in her chair. Elaine had never imagined seeing Professor Vanessa Helen Singer looking quite so defeated, but there she was: a dullness to her eyes and tightness around the corners of her mouth. “His name was Laszlo.” 

For a moment, they let that non-confession hang in the air. 

Elaine nodded. “What do we do?” 

*

They went to the cemetery. In later years, Elaine would become intimately familiar with these grounds—the way the grass grew and died, how the headstones lost their shine, how heavy the darkness felt when visiting for purposes some would consider nefarious. This visit, with her professor, was not her first time setting foot on the hallowed ground, but was the first time with such purpose, and despite the many other visits Elaine made to the site, this visit was always what she thought of. 

Professor Vanessa Helen Singer described how to kill a vampire the same way she described how to perform a dissection: with utmost precision and dramatic hand movements. In the night air, the fluttering of her long coat turned her into a striking image, the visual only strengthened when she drove her shovel into the dirt. Elaine fell into step beside her, completing the work in nervous silence. 

“Shouldn’t we do this in the daytime?” she asked when they were about halfway down the grave. 

“And risk being arrested?” 

“Touché.” 

The professor looked towards the west. “There’s still enough sunlight that she won’t wake. We’ll have time if we work quickly.” 

Elaine was silent until their shovels hit Missy’s coffin. 

“Now,” Professor Vanessa Helen Singer said firmly, bending down to lift the lid. “Remember: a stake in the heart should be enough, but decapitation is good insurance. As are the garlic flowers.” 

“Why…” 

The professor smiled kindly at her, standing and cupping her face in her dirty hands. “You’re wondering why I don’t do it.” Elaine nodded. “It is a unique burden, to love what we must destroy. Think of this as funeral rites—something to ease her journey to the next life, whatever that may be. You are lifting a curse. Wouldn’t you want that to be done by someone who loved you?” 

She didn’t know how to answer that. 

The professor knelt again to open the lid. 

Missy didn’t look dead. She looked more than living, rosy-cheeked and glossy haired, eyes closed like she was sleeping. Elaine had thought she was out of tears, that she had no more left to spill for Missy West, but at the sight of her laying, not like a monster but like a fairytale encased in glass, she felt a salt sting in her eyes. She sank to the knees in the dirt. 

“Can I—” Elaine swallowed. “I don’t want anyone else to have to see her like that. Can I…Can I be alone?” 

She felt her professor’s hand on her shoulder. “Of course. I’ll wait by the entrance. If anyone comes by, I’ll come to collect you.” 

Elaine nodded, swallowing thickly as she reached for the tools. She listened to her footsteps until they faded. Missy didn’t stir. There was still a sliver of orange sunlight just barely visible over the horizon. Apparently, that was important to Missy now. 

“I’m going to regret this,” she muttered, and closed the coffin with the stake and the saw inside. 

*

Professor Vanessa Helen Singer left less than a week later. 

“Irving is still out there, and so my work is not done.” She hugged Elaine fiercely. “I am so sorry, and I am so proud of you. You have a bright future, Elaine Holmwood.” 

Wila had been recovering well, coming back to herself and seemingly unaware of Missy’s prior visits. Elaine’s other friends had no idea anything other than death was amiss, and spent most of their time preparing for either further studies or for graduation. John planned to get a doctorate while Jon wanted a law degree. Their bickering about spelling turned into bickering over whose profession would be better. Quinn leaned over to Elaine to whisper that he thought they were both being ridiculous, and Elaine allowed herself to smile. It wasn’t the same as Missy’s whispered commentary, but she was learning to be okay with that. 

Her post-college plans had shifted. She didn’t plan to leave, like the rest of her friends did, or like Artie kept trying to convince her to. She was going to stick around for her masters, her doctorate, whatever it took to become a professor. She’d been inspired. 

After their graduation celebrations, Elaine went back to her room alone and was unsurprised to see Missy sitting on her bed. 

“You didn’t kill me.” 

Elaine raised her eyebrows. “How do you know that was me?” 

“Who else would’ve let me live?” 

She shrugged, not taking her eyes away from the creature in front of her. Even in the three-twenty-seven-a.m. darkness, there was enough light to glint off of Elaine’s crucifix necklace, sending a small gold flash across the room. Missy laughed humorlessly.  

“You aren’t going to let me turn you, are you?” 

“I didn’t think I’d have to let you.” 

Missy’s jaw worked and she looked down. “What’s the point if I force it on you? What’s the point if you don’t want to stay with me?” 

In all the years that followed, she wasn’t sure what prompted her to say it. “I’m staying here. For my masters. Maybe I’ll even teach here, one day.” 

Missy’s eyes sparkled—Elaine couldn’t be sure if that was metaphorical or not. “Well,” she drawled, heady and heavy and dangerous, and for an instant Elaine understood what her old professor had meant when she said that Missy West was dead, “I’ll be seeing you, Elaine.” 

*

Elaine Holmwood knew who the killer was, even if no one else knew there were murders being committed. 

For ten years, she’d made it her duty to prevent anyone else from making the same choice that she did. She scoured obituaries and listened to rumours, taking note of anyone who might’ve been Missy’s handiwork, and dragged herself to the cemetery with her stakes and saws and shovels. Like her old professor, she took to wearing long coats and brimmed hats to obscure her natural silhouette (though she never went so far as wearing them in her classroom). She never tattooed a cross over her chest, but she wore a crucifix every day. She kept garlic flowers in her window and holy water in a humidifier in her office. She did all she could to keep vampires at bay. 

But she took her time re-burying the coffins, dragging out the process until the sun was fully gone, until the stars appeared, until the night chill seeped into her fingers and turned them as cold as the dead beneath her. She worked slowly. She never had time to visit Missy’s gravestone. 

“This is a pointless endeavour, you know.” 

Missy, however, always seemed to have time to visit her. 

“It’s been ten years of this, Elaine. Aren’t you tired?” 

Elaine huffed a laugh. “Of course I am.” 

Missy looked as beautiful as she always had, as lively as she had ten years ago, when she died at twenty-two. Elaine knew her mousey hair was beginning to streak with grey (from the stress of academia, she told her friends on the rare occasions she saw them now). She knew her skin was slowly but surely lining itself with wrinkles, her joints and back were protesting her movements. She wasn’t old, not by a long shot, but the years she did carry sat heavily. Despite it, Missy always looked at her the same way she did when she was alive: like Elaine was something to treasure forever. 

“There’s an easy fix.” 

“Easy,” Elaine scoffed. “Nothing about this has ever been easy.”  

Missy smiled, her perfect teeth and sharp fangs glinting in the moonlight. 

Maybe it was because Elaine really was achingly tired. Maybe Missy had, finally, worn her down to her arteries. Whatever the motivation was, Elaine asked, “Why is it a pointless endeavour?” 

“Guess.” 

“Missy.” 

“Oh, I liked that,” she sighed, almost dreamily. “You haven’t called me by my name in a long time.” 

“I’m leaving,” Elaine muttered, shoving her hands in her pockets and turning away. 

She’d barely made it three steps before Missy called, “It’s pointless because I’ve never turned any of them. Fed on them, sure, but they were never going to come back. You didn’t have to go to the effort of defiling their graves.” 

Elaine turned a slow circle on her heel to face Missy again. “What?” 

Missy shrugged, elegant and slow, keeping her eyes locked on Elaine’s. “There was only ever one person who I wanted to spend forever with.” 

“Come here.” 

Missy wasted no time crossing the distance. “Elaine,” she said, emphasised and slow, as if Elaine could possibly pay attention to anything else right now. 

“You’ve never turned anyone?” 

“Not one. Only offered it to you.” 

Elaine closed her eyes and let out a short, irritated breath. “So for ten years you’ve been watching me dig up graves and saw people’s heads off, for no reason and you said nothing?” 

“In my defence,” Missy answered, voice light and mirthful, “I didn’t think you’d listen.” 

“So why now?” 

“You looked tired. I thought maybe you’d finally see things my way.” 

For a beat, neither of them moved. The cemetery was quiet. Even the air felt still. 

Ten years previously, Elaine made a choice.  

She reached up to her neck. Missy’s eyes tracked the movement, head tilted curiously. 

Ten years previously, Elaine had made a mistake. 

Her hands found the clasp of her golden necklace. 

Ten years previously, Elaine had let herself down. She understood, finally. 

She let the chain slide into one hand and slid the hand into her pocket. 

“Okay,” she said, raising her chin. “I am tired. I am so tired. We’re always doing the same thing over and over—it’s exhausting. You asked me to stay with you and I didn’t take you up on it. But I’m still here, aren’t I? I did stay. May as well own up to that.” 

Missy blinked at her, her mouth falling open in shock or awe or some combination. 

“What are you waiting for?” 

“You mean it,” Missy breathed. “Don’t you?” 

“Of course.” Elaine smiled, feeling a weight ease from her neck and back. “We’ve been neck and neck, chasing each other around, for long enough, don’t you think?” 

“Yes,” she agreed, and stepped into Elaine’s space. 

She bent, mouth open, towards Elaine’s neck. She could feel Missy’s breath on her throat, could feel the cold of her skin where her hands came to Elaine’s shoulders, could feel her own heart pounding against her ribcage. Missy’s teeth brushed against her pulse point, and she laughed when Elaine shivered. It was a delighted sound. Elaine took one last look at Missy, noting her exact position, the way the moonlight caught in her perfect hair, the beauty of her, and closed her eyes. 

Elaine pulled her hand from her pocket and pointed a stake at the creature’s heart. 

The End