Abraham Lincoln_ Vampire Hunter - Seth Grahame-Smith [67]
“When you say ‘dine with the devil,’ well… you are closer to the truth than you know. I say he keeps company of the worst kind. What I mean to say is… he is a friend of evil, Speed. A friend of creatures who care not for human life. Creatures who would kill you or me and feel all the remorse of an elephant who stepped on an ant.”
“Ah… you mean he is a friend of vampires.”
Abe felt the blood leave his fingertips.
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter
III
Joshua Speed had never felt at home with the other “well-bred boys” of St. Joseph’s Academy. He liked to play pranks. Tell jokes. He liked to dream of life on the wild frontier, “where men were few and arrows flew.” He couldn’t stand the thought of suffering his father’s quiet life of privilege. He yearned for something more—to strike out on his own and see the world. When he was nineteen, this yearning led him to Springfield, where he bought a stake in A. Y. Ellis. But filling orders and keeping inventory hadn’t proved the “wild frontier” he was looking for.
In early 1841, not long after Abe’s fatal first of January, Speed sold his interests and returned to Kentucky, leaving Lincoln to enjoy the room above the store by himself.
Arrived at Farmington. Must sleep.
It was August, and Abe had come to the Speed family’s Kentucky estate, Farmington, for some much-needed time away from his troubles. He hadn’t ventured out in months for fear of running into Mary or her friends, and his name was “treated as a profanity in every parlor in Springfield.” Speed had written his old roommate and insisted he come for “as long as is necessary to heal your troubles.”
Abe was more relaxed than he had been in years, or ever would be again. He took leisurely rides around the estate on horseback. Ventured into Lexington. Lazed afternoons away on the porch of the giant plantation house (the first he had actually set foot inside, his nightmares notwithstanding). If there was one drawback to life at Farmington, it was the inescapable sight of slaves. They were everywhere—in the house; in the fields.
Riding on the road to town today, I saw a dozen Negroes chained together like so many fish upon a trotline. It causes me no small discomfort to be among them. To be surrounded by them. Not only because I think their servitude a sin, but because they remind me of all that I wish to forget.
Abe and Joshua Speed talked the days away. They spoke of Britain’s might; of the steam engine. And they spoke of vampires.
“My own father dealt with the devils, I am ashamed to say,” said Speed. “They were hardly a secret among men of his stature, and a poorly kept one in our home, my older brothers having been enlisted in his efforts to win their favor.”
“So he sold Negroes to them?”
“The old and the lame, as a rule. He believed it a double blessing—a way to be rid of a useless slave and make a profit doing so. Once or twice he sold off a healthy buck, or a wench with child. Those fetched a higher price as they had more bl—”
“Enough! How can you speak of them so? Speak of men as cattle led to slaughter?”
“If I have given the impression that I take their murders lightly, I apologize. I do not, Abe. Nor have I ever. To the contrary, vampires are chief among the reasons that I never sought the warmth of my father’s esteem, or mourned his passing with more than a few tears. How could I accept it, when I have heard the screams of men and women feasted upon to line his pockets? When I have seen the faces of those demons through the spaces between wooden planks? If I could banish it from my memory… if I could atone for what was done here, I would do so.”
“Then atone for it.”
Speed needed little convincing. He needed only be told that hunting vampires was both dangerous and thrilling, much like the wild frontier of his imagination. As I had with Jack, * I shared the whole of my knowledge—teaching him how and when to strike; sparring with him to build his poise. Like Jack, he was impatient, too eager to run headlong into the fight. But where Jack could rely on his strength to