Abraham Lincoln_ Vampire Hunter - Seth Grahame-Smith [105]
Henry stood in the center of the room, arms at his sides. I charged again—raising my ax as I ran. Henry didn’t so much as blink as I came. Rather, he grabbed the handle as I brought it down on his head, took it from me, and snapped it in two, throwing the pieces on the floor. I came at him with my fists, but these he caught as well, twisting them around and forcing me to my knees. Holding me thus, he knelt behind me and brought his fangs to my neck. “No!” cried Lamon, rushing forward. The others held him back. I felt the tips of those twin razors against my flesh.
“Do it!” I cried.
The only peace in this life is the end of it…
“Do it, I beg you!”
I felt the tiny trickles of blood run down my neck as his fangs broke through my skin. I closed my eyes and prepared to meet the unknown; to see my beloved boys once more… but it was not to be.
Henry withdrew his fangs and let me go.
“Some people are just too interesting to kill, Abraham,” he said, rising to his feet. He gathered his coat and hat again and walked to the door, toward the three anxious guards whose hearts were racing faster than my own.
“Henry…”
He turned back.
“I will see this war to its end… but I do not care to see another vampire so long as I live.”
Henry offered a slight bow. “Mr. President…”
With that, he disappeared.
Abe wouldn’t see him for the rest of his life.
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter
TWELVE
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter
“Starve the Devils”
Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue… until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”
—Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address
March 4th, 1865
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter
I
Washington, D.C., was under attack, and Abe wasn’t about to miss his chance to see the fighting up close.
On July 11th, 1864, ignoring the pleas of his personal guard, he rode alone on horseback to Fort Stevens, * where Confederate General Jubal A. Early was leading 17,000 rebels in a brazen assault on Washington’s northern defenses. The president was greeted by Union officers and whisked directly into the fort, where he would be able to relax and enjoy a cool drink behind the safety of its thick stone walls.
I hadn’t come to be coddled or hear the battle described to me—I’d come to see the horrors of war for myself. To see what others had suffered these three long years, while I had remained behind the walls of warmth and plenty. Try as they might, the officers couldn’t discourage me from peeking over the parapet to watch boys line up and ceremoniously shoot one another—to see them blown apart by [cannon fire] and run through by bayonets.
The sight of Abraham Lincoln towering over the battlefield in his stovepipe hat must have seemed a godsend for the rebel sharpshooters at Fort Stevens that day. Abe had three bullets zip past him in as many minutes, each one giving his minders terrible fits of anxiety. Finally, when a Union officer standing next to him was struck in the head and killed, the president felt a tug at the bottom of his coat, and heard First Lieutenant (and future Supreme Court Justice) Oliver Wendell Holmes yell: “Get down, you damned fool!”
But he didn’t.
He’d completely lost his fear of death.
There were no more vampires at the White House. Abe had banished them in the wake of Willie’s death and his confrontation with Henry. Even the trinity—his most capable and ferocious protectors—had been sent back to New York.
I shall save this Union because it merits saving. I shall save it