Robert glanced over at Sue. She took a deep breath, nodded. "I'll let Sue Wing tell you about that," he said.
Sue stood. She was isibly nervous, her hands trembling, but she nodded to the mayor and the council, then turned to face Buford. "What you call a vampire, we call a cup hugirngsi in my culture. It's basically the same thing, but the difference is that we do not believe that the cup hugrngsi has anything to do with Christianity. It is not a monster that preys only on the members of one religion. It kills anyone. It kills animals. It even kills plants. It exists and it has always existed, and that's why the symbols of Christianity won't stop it. You can't use holy water or crosses like you can in the movies. Jade--"
A tall cowboy standing next to the door smiled patronizingly at Sue. "I read that article too, and, no offense, babe, but what we got here's an American vampire."
Lee Hillman nodded. "This thing's a bloodsucker, not a rice eater."
There was a chorus of good-natured chuckles.
Sue felt the blood rush to her face, her cheeks burning with anger.
"Listen, you ignorant redneck, s--"
"There's no call to use language like that," the mayor said sternly.
"This isn't a game!" Sue said. "Don't you realize that?"
"I don't know who you think you are---" Councilman Waiters began.
Pee Wee stood, his frame dwarfing all those around him. "Let her speak," he said, and the argument quieted down. He nodded toward Sue.
"Go on."
"What you've seen in the movies is wrong. The cup hug/rngsi doesn't care about Christian symbols. It was around long before Christianity.
But it is afraid of jade. It can be hurt by the wood of the willow tree. It can be turned back with the baht gwa, amirror with eight sides. These are what you need to be arming yourselves with." She looked around the room, saw hostility on some faces, indifference on others, interest on only a few. "We can kill it," she said, and she purposely made her voice softer, more sympathetic. "But until we do, you need to protect yourselves and your loved ones. My parents have a willow tree. I think a few of you ranchers have some too. Use the branches to make spears. Wear jade or carry it with you. Do not go out at night."
Rich nodded. "If we just behave sensibly, if we just act on what we know, we can get through this thing."
"How did a Chinese vampire get all the way over here in America?"
Councilman Jones asked suspiciously.
"They brought him!" a woman yelled. "Her family brought him with them!"
"There's no such thing as a "Chinese' vampire," Sue said. "There are only cup hugirngsis. They're the same everywhere."
"Then how come your stuff works against him, and ours doesn't?" a man called out.
"I don't know," Sue said patiently. "Information gets changed over the years, over the miles. Somehow you got the information wrong. It's like that kid's game where you start a message at one end of a room and whisper it to the person next to you, and by the time it gets to the other end of the room, it's screwed up." She looked down at her grandmother, placed a hand on the old woman's shoulder. "We know about these things because our culture is thousands of years old. And continuous. We've learned a few things over the centuries. America is only a couple of hundred years old."
"Maybe we could burn the vampire," Mayor Tillis interrupted. "Find out where he lives and torch it. Or we could douse him with liquid nitrogen, freeze him."
"You're thinking of scientific solutions," Rich said, looking exasperatedly at Sue. "Listen to what she is saying. This is not something that obeys the laws of science. This thing has nothing to do with logic or reason. We need... I don't know, magic to right him. Sue just told you what you need to do to protect yourselves
"We can just drag him out into sunlight," a young man said. ""Let him fry and turn to dust."
"Whatever we do, we need to catch him firstl" Will Overbeck shouted. "I think we should set a trap. I'll donate a cow, Lem could kick in a goat, maybe some of the other ranchers would be willing to fork over some chickens. We could slaughter them all, spread the blood around, like they do for sharks, and then wait. When he comes to eat! you got him! got him."
Robert looked over Rich's shoulder at Sue, shook his head disgustedly.
"They're not listening to us," Rich whispered.
Dozens of people were speaking at once now, their competing voices worriedly anxious and, at the same time, defensively belligerent.
"This demon can only be fought with prayer," Pastor Wilkerson from the Lutheran Church was saying from his seat.
Mrs. Church, the librarian, vehemently shook her head. "I cannot sit idly by, praying for God to do something when I can do it myself. God gave us brains and free will so we could make our own decisions, so we could right our own fights. The Chinese girl said the vampire's afraid of jade instead of crosses, and I believe her. God has al lowed this information to be placed in front of us; now he is waiting to see what we do with it."
"Exactly," Robert said.
The mayor banged on his desk with a gavel. He stood and continued to bang until the room was silent. He looked slowly around the room. "I don't know if we've Succeeded in reaching an agreement on anything yet, but I do suggest that we proceed in a logical and orderly fashion. I am proposing that we adopt an emergency curfew, that we ban all children and adults from being on the street after dark until such time as this situation is resolved. Once the proposal is seconded, I will open the floor for discussion."
"Basha's is open twenty-four hours," Jim Kness, the manager of the grocery store said. "That's corporate policy. I can't change that.
I'm going to be arrested for doing my job and keeping the store open?"
"What about the movie theater?" someone said.
"I can't go shopping until after I get off work, and I don't get off until it's dark."
Robert raised his hands for silence. "We won't enforce any curfew." He looked over at the mayor. "Sorry, Al. But we do need to decide how we're going to deal with this."
Tom Moore, the Baptist preacher, jumped up from his seat and rushed into the center of the council chambers.
"Vampires," Moore announced loudly, "are the spawn of Satan. They are among us because we asked them here with our wickedness and our sinfulness. But Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour, has returned to protect us, has offered us sanctuary from the adversary if only we dedicate ourselves to obeying the word of God." He turned slowly on his heel and raised his arm until he was pointing at Sue. "This heathen has asked us to adopt the ways of evil, to forsake the holy word of God--"
"Shut up," Robert said, facing Moore. "Just shut the hell up. This isn't your church, this is a town council meeting We're here as citizens of Rio Verde, not as individuals. We're here to draft a civil defense plan for our town, not to promote our own interests. If you have nothing to contribute beyond your racist bullshit, then stop taking up our time. We have work to do."
There was the sound of two hands clapping from the back of the now silent audience, and Buford stood, grinning hugely, hands high over his head, applauding. To the side of him, someone else began to clap. The applause grew. It by no means included most of the assembled people, but it was definitely close to half, and Rich felt proud as he looked at his brother, standing tall and proud against the preacher.
Moore turned without a word and walked out of the room, the crowd parting before him to let him through. Some people watched his departure with concern, still others hurried to join him, but most remained where they were,