“Then why me? Why not kill them yourself?”
Henry paused to collect his thoughts.
“When I rode here from St. Louis,” he said at last, “I knew that you would not be dead when I arrived. I knew it with all my heart… because I know your purpose.”
Abe lifted his eyes to meet Henry’s.
“Most men have no purpose but to exist, Abraham; to pass quietly through history as minor characters upon a stage they cannot even see. To be the playthings of tyrants. But you… you were born to fight tyranny. It is your purpose, Abraham. To free men from the tyranny of vampires. It has always been your purpose, since you first sprang from your mother’s womb. And I have seen it emanating from your every pore since the night we first met. Shining from you as brightly as the sun. Do you think that it was some accident that brought us together? Do you think it was mere chance that the first vampire I sought to kill in more than a hundred years was the one who led me to you?
“I can see a man’s purpose, Abraham. It is my gift. I can see it as clearly as I see you standing before me now. Your purpose is to fight tyranny…
“… and mine is to see that you win.”
SEVEN
The Fatal First
I have now come to the conclusion never again to think of marrying, and for this reason; I can never be satisfied with anyone who would be blockhead enough to have me.
—Abraham Lincoln, in a letter to Mrs. Orville H. Browning
April 1st, 1838
I
Abe was on the second floor of a plantation house. He’d seen so many of them on his trips down the Mississippi—the oversize, four-columned wonders built by the hands of slaves. But he’d never been inside. Not until tonight.
I held Jack in my arms, his innards visible through the slit that ran across his belly. I saw the color leave his face… saw the fear in his eyes. And then the nothingness. My brave, sturdy friend. The roughest man in Clary’s Grove. Gone. And yet I could not grieve him now—for I too remained perilously close to death.
It had been another simple errand, another name on Henry’s list. But this place was different. Extraordinary. Abe was on his knees, certain he’d stumbled into some kind of vampire hive.
How many there were I did not know. I set Jack’s body down and entered a long second-floor hallway, ax in hand, my long coat torn by the very claws that had taken my friend’s life. Open doors ran the length of this corridor, and as I walked cautiously forward, each revealed a scene more horrid than the last. In one, the tiny bodies of three children hung from ropes by their ankles—their throats cut. Pails placed beneath them to catch their blood. In another, the withered, white-eyed corpse of a woman in a rocking chair. One of her skeletal hands rested atop the head of a child in her lap, not quite as decayed as she. Down the corridor… the remains of a woman lying in bed. Farther… a squat vampire with a stake through his heart. All the while I heard the sounds of the floors creaking around me. Above and below. I crept down the corridor… closer to the grand staircase at its end. On reaching its railing, I turned back to perceive the whole of the hallway. Suddenly there was a vampire before me—though I could not see his face against the light. He took the ax from my hand and threw it aside… lifted me clear off the ground by my collar. Now I saw his face.
It was Henry.
“It is your purpose to free men from tyranny, Abraham,” he said. “And to do so, you must die.” Upon this, he threw me over the railing. My body fell toward the foyer’s marble floor. And fell. For all time.
It was the last nightmare Abe would ever have in New Salem.
It had taken him months to emerge from the crippling depression brought on by Ann’s death—and while it had renewed his hatred of vampires, he found himself without the energy and passion to hunt them. Now, when a letter from St. Louis arrived in Henry’s handwriting, it might go unopened for days (and once opened, it might be weeks before Abe attended to the name inside). Sometimes, if the errand required too much travel, he sent Jack Armstrong in his stead. His despondency is clear in an entry dated November 18th, 1836.
I have given too much of myself already. Henceforth, I shall hunt only when it is convenient for me to do so, and only because it honors the memory of my angel mother… only because it honors Ann’s memory. I care not for the unsuspecting gentleman on the darkened city street. I care not for the Negro sold at auction, or the child taken from its bed. Protecting them has not profited me in the least. On the contrary, it has left me even poorer, for the items my errands require are furnished at my own expense. And the days and weeks spent hunting are days and weeks without a wage. If what Henry says is the truth—if I am truly meant to free men from tyranny—then I must begin by freeing myself. There is nothing for me here [in New Salem]. The store is failed, and I fear the village is not far behind. Henceforth my life shall be my own.
Abe had been encouraged to pursue law by his old Blackhawk War friend John T. Stuart, who had a small practice in Springfield. After studying entirely on his own (and only in his spare time), Abe obtained a law license in the fall of 1836. Shortly thereafter, Stuart asked him to partner up. On April 12th, 1837, the two men ran an advertisement in The Sangamon Journal announcing their new venture, located in Springfield at “Number Four Hoffman’s Row, Upstairs.” Three days later, Abe rode solemnly into Springfield on a borrowed horse, carrying everything he owned in a pair of saddlebags. He was twenty-eight years old, and he was penniless—“the whole of my money going toward my debts, and the requisite books of my new profession.” He tied up outside A. Y. Ellis & Co., a general store on the west side of the square, “and moseyed in with not so much as an acorn in my pocket.” The clerk was a slender man named Joshua Fry Speed, twenty-four years old, with jet-black hair and a “graceful” face that framed two “unnervingly” blue eyes.
I found him at once odd and bothersome. “Are you new to Springfield, sir? May I interest you in a hat, sir? What news from the county, sir? Must you routinely stoop to fit through doorways, sir?” Never had I been asked so many questions! Never had I been so unwillingly dragged into conversation! I would not have dreamt of treating my customers in such a way during my own tenure as a clerk. I could not go from one shelf to the next without him buzzing about like a horsefly asking questions, when all I cared to do was conclude my business and be on my way. To this end, I handed him a list of goods—including the chemicals I required for my hunts.
“You will forgive my saying so,” said Speed, “but these are strange requests indeed.”
“They are what I require. I shall be glad to furnish you with the names of the—”
“Strange indeed—sir, are you certain we have not met?”
“Sir, are you able you order them or not?”
“Yes, I am sure of it! Yes… yes, I saw you give a speech July last at Salisbury! On the need for improving the Sangamon? Do you not remember, sir? Joshua Speed? A fellow Kentuckian?”
“I really must be on my—”
“A fine speech indeed! Of course, I believe you quite mistaken on the subject—every dollar spent on that miserable creek is a dollar wasted. But what a speech!”
He pledged to order the whole of my list at once, and (much to the relief of my weary ears) busied himself copying its contents. Before taking my leave, I inquired as to whether he knew of any rooms for rent—preferably cheap ones, as I had no money to pay at the moment.