Twice Bitten (3 page)

I did, however, sneak a peek in the mirror at my neck around ten o’clock. Not only was there still no sign of the puncture wounds that drew my blood earlier, the redness around my birthmark had faded noticeably. And, there was no tenderness.

Peter tried to sing happy birthday to me after dinner.  At least there were no dogs or cats present to chime in, or it might’ve been a really awful serenade. Still, his vulnerability made him so adorable. It rose up the ante in regard to the push-pull tug on my heart.

Sometimes, I thought about the tense excitement between us when we first started dating, hoping to hang onto that feeling. Such incredible intoxication! The beginnings of love, that tender bud of burning desire which nearly drove me mad at times, even though I suspected the feeling was always a little stronger with him than with me.                                                                                                      

But that night it was almost impossible to think of any romance with him, or reflect upon our best intimacies since September. Instead, I found my thoughts drawn repeatedly back to tonight’s pale intruder…Garvan. Garvan, the magician…or, better yet, the messenger of doom. Maybe he’s just some guy who happens to portray a dashingly handsome vampire.

A vampire?

Such nonsense! But, for some reason, that thought made him seem more real. Worse was the fact that this single thought lifted my heart for him, this stranger, while pulling a little bit more from my current beau. Not even my mysterious illness and the dried blood absorbed by a handful of Kleenex tissues in my wastebasket could dampen Garvan’s allure. Nor did his inhuman ability to appear and disappear in an instant change my attraction to him. If nothing else, I desired to find out
who
and
what
he truly was. 

What stayed most with me that night was not the wound to my neck, or our brief conversation. It was his eyes. They were so unusual in their fiery luminance, as if fueled by some unfathomable ocean of feeling. Magnetic, dangerous, and very hard to get out of my mind. 

But, all of this engendered other questions as well…much more worrisome. If, per chance, he were a vampire, what would he want with
me
, a warm-blooded human being? Other than to suck my body blood-dry I couldn’t think of a good reason. And, again, why would Garvan show up the evening of my nineteenth birthday? Was that merely a coincidence born out of his stated concern for my welfare? 

None of it made sense. At least, not yet. There was so much more to this puzzle that I had just begun to get pieces for.

I shuddered again as I thought about it all, and the swirling questions stayed with me long after Peter and I said goodnight. He slept in my top bunk while I took Tyreen’s bed below. Soon after midnight I heard him snore. How I longed for that same sweet solace, especially once the whispered voices returned. I couldn’t help but listen, straining my eyes to discern elusive movement in the shadows outside my window. Until finally, I lost the battle to stay awake.

Chapter 4

It’s funny how things seem so different in the full light of day. When I awoke the next morning, the girls on my floor were already moving back and forth from the showers to their rooms. Any male company had quietly departed, except for my guy. Peter reluctantly left once I shooed him out after demonstrating I was all right. I assured him that whatever illness I suffered from the night before had left me completely. Surely, the frantic scamper around my dorm room to gather my shampoo, soap, and toothpaste helped sell the notion I was fine.

Tyreen had just returned to our room when I finished my shower. Already dressed in jeans and her favorite beige pullover, she apparently was waiting on my butt to get ready, so we could eat breakfast together. As she had the night before, she looked upset. She tapped her right foot nervously, while sitting on the edge of her bunk bed.

“Hey, I’m sorry,” I told her, while moving over to my dresser to put my lotion away and grab my makeup bag. “I haven’t had a chance to make your bed yet, but I promise to do it right after I dry my hair.” I grabbed my hairdryer and brought it over to the vanity’s mirror.

“It’s okay, honest…really it can wait until later,” she assured me. The look of worry remained. “You seem a lot better. Are you feeling as good as you look?”

Right then I resembled a drenched river-rat with my hair dripping upon my shoulders. Her wan smile told me this wasn’t a joke at my expense. Tyreen has often stated her envy of how my hair holds just enough natural curl to where I don’t need to dry it fully.

“I’m feeling much better,” I said, offering a bright smile. Maybe even a little exaggerated, since her foot had begun tapping again. I worked diligently to put my makeup on. “So, did you and Johnny have some fun after you left last night?”

“We did…although I guess he didn’t care much for my little joke about leaving his ass behind if you needed me,” she said, winking and chuckling for a moment. Then she grew serious. “Did you hear about the murder that took place on the north side of campus last night?”

“What?!”

I was in the process of securing my earrings when I whipped my head around to face her.

“When did it happen?” I scarcely believed what I heard. “Was it someone we know?” 

“No, but it was a student,” she confirmed, and then sighed, deeply. “The victim lived off campus, in one of the apartment buildings off 21
st
Street.”

Not that Knoxville is a crime-free city—far from it.  However, the last murder involving UT students took place a couple of years ago, so this news came as a shock.

“It was a girl,” Tyreen continued, her eyes misty. “They showed her picture on the news earlier this morning, when Johnny wanted to see how the Cavs did last night…. She looks just like
you!”

She started to weep. I may not be as softhearted as her, but I do have compassion for others, and for her especially. I rushed over and threw my arms around her. She bawled on my shoulder while I held her tight.

“Damn it, I really thought something bad had happened to you—that you somehow bullheaded your way into making Peter take you out after all!” said Tyreen between sobs. “It wasn’t until Johnny told me the name—some other weird name like yours, but different—that I started to settle down. I thought I was going to have a heart attack—really, I did!”

I didn’t know how to respond to this, or even if I could.  When I opened my mouth to say something, my throat constricted. All I thought of was Garvan’s warning. Someone waited outside—somewhere on campus, and intended to take my life. Could this killing be related, especially if the victim looked a lot like me?

When I awoke that morning, to warm sunlight pouring into our dorm room, my first thought was the previous night’s craziness was largely in my head. Garvan was just some handsome weirdo who happened to sneak into my room—maybe while Tyreen and I were in class across campus. I felt incredibly foolish for assuming something as crazy as a vampire had visited me. Maybe I had tripped over my shoes and hit my neck somehow. It really bummed me out that my birthday celebration plans got botched like that.

Now I wasn’t so sure what happened. I had to deal with the reality that Garvan might be more than what I passed him off as. Regardless of anything else, I had to accept the reality that he might’ve saved my life.

“Well…are you going to say something or just let me carry on like this by myself?” said Tyreen, when all I could do was shake my head. “It really could’ve been
you
, you know!”

“When did the murder take place?” There, I said something.
     “Johnny said the police aren’t sure of an exact time. I’m sure it happened after we came to check on you,” she said, pausing to take a deep breath. She was regaining her composure.

“Did the police say how it happened?”

Tyreen shook her head, and patted me on the shoulder, letting me know she was ready to get up.

“No…just that the girl was attacked and killed,” she told me, as she gathered her purse and backpack and headed toward the door. “Are you coming? We can talk about this later. I’m sure we’ll learn a lot more as the day goes on.”

“That would be my guess,” I agreed. Really, I didn’t want to speculate any further, as my head already swam with a plethora of questions. Concentration during my morning classes, English Lit and Poli-Sci, would already present a major challenge. “Let’s go eat.”

***

Irma Goizane. That was the victim’s name.

Strange name, like mine, and like Ybarra, Goizane is Basque. 

Tall and slender, with light skin, dark hair, and green eyes—she looks a lot like me, or
looked
, I should say. Not as athletic as me, it’s probably the reason she couldn’t effectively fend off her attacker, or attackers. At least that’s how I’d like to think things might’ve turned out differently if it had been me, instead of Irma. Her throat was torn out entirely, and ‘word on the street’ said her head was barely attached to her body. Drained of all her blood, too, which is why the maintenance man who found her body next to a dumpster didn’t immediately see anything out of place. The corpse wasn’t lying in a puddle of blood.

Oh, I’m sure it was a grizzly affair despite the absence of blood. And, how did I find this out, when the news reports and every Internet search I accessed turned up only the standard blurb on the homicide? 

Johnny has friends. Tyreen’s boyfriend got us the scoop on what went down…although nobody could tell us
how
the crime played out. And Johnny was so anxious to tell Tyreen and me what he found out from his campus guard buddies during lunch that he completely ignored the fact we were eating. Neither of us girls finished our meals, especially after Johnny went into specific details as to what the maintenance guy found that morning.

“Thank God you got sick last night, Txema,” said Tyreen, once we had all the information about the victim and what happened to her. “I’m really scared…. It could’ve really been
you!!”

Johnny nodded in agreement, thoughtful, as if afraid now to reveal anything to further upset us. Not that I was angry…just saddened for this girl, Irma. I thought again about Garvan’s warning last night, although not for long. Realizing it would only lead to many more unanswerable questions, I forced myself to think about my afternoon Lit assignment instead.

“But it wasn’t me. I’m
really
sad for her,” I said, gathering my backpack from the cafeteria table and removing my tray. “I just hope they catch whoever did this quickly before they hurt somebody else…. Are you coming with me to the library?”

“I hope they catch this sicko, too,” Tyreen agreed, standing up with her tray. “Yes, I’m coming along with you. But, damn straight we ain’t staying there long. Yours and my ass had better be back in our dorm room before it gets dark.” She shot me a sly smile, though the look in her eyes said she was extremely worried.

***

Tyreen got her wish, and we left the library by four o’clock. Two and a half hours can be plenty of time to get homework done. It used to be, back in high school. But that afternoon, I got very little accomplished—largely because Tyreen couldn’t stay focused on her own studies long enough to give me peace. Every time she wanted to talk about what happened and what it could mean to her, me, and the rest of the females on campus, I had to start over on whatever research I presently worked on. Of course, I wasn’t much help to my cause either, as every time this happened it got me thinking about the murder, Garvan’s warning, all the shit from last night, etc, etc.

The temperature had dropped nearly twenty degrees by the time we walked back to Massey Hall, which often happens when the sun begins to set in eastern Tennessee in late fall, or so the older students say. However, it seemed a lot colder than usual that afternoon. Every shadowed archway and stairwell—even the thick juniper bushes—looked suspicious to us. We almost ran despite our brisk pace.

Once safe and sound in our dorm room, Tyreen immediately turned on the TV to learn the latest news on the murder, while I turned up the heater in our room. We already planned to order take-out of one variety or another. The debate between Chinese and the local Steak-out hadn’t been decided yet, when my cell phone rang.

It was my father, calling from Richmond.

“Txema?”

“Yes, Papa.”

Tyreen motioned that she was going to order for us on her phone, telling me the decision on what it would be had already been made by her. I shot her a playful scowl.

“So, you are all right!” He sounded relieved. His Brooklyn accent sounds almost ‘mobster’ when he gets upset. “We heard about the girl who was killed today.”

“Yes, Papa, I’m fine,” I assured him while waving my money at Tyreen. “My roommate and I are staying in tonight, so don’t worry. Okay?”

“Stefan Goizane is an old friend of mine in New York, and your Grandma tells me his daughter attends college down south. It’s got to be the same girl…how many Goizane’s do you know, eh?”  

It pained me to hear my normally jovial father so worried. But, I was his only daughter and very much a daddy’s girl. I tried my best to assure him that I’d be careful.