Ripper (Hunter #1)(19)

He nodded shortly. “Yes, Joanne is an excellent student. She did her final essay last year on the relevance of Bram Stoker’s Dracula to today’s genre fiction. It was a good paper. I invited her to join us for this class. It’s mostly made up of sophomores and juniors, but there are a few seniors.”

“Her roommate said she spent more time than usual on this class.”

He shrugged. “It’s a rigorous class. I know some people think there isn’t a lot of value in what I teach, but I think we can all learn from history.”

“History? I thought you taught English.”

“I do, but you can’t study literature and the minds of the great authors without understanding history. My class is contextual. I teach freshman English and any number of literature courses, but over the last ten years I’ve become interested in lore and mythology. It was my Classical Mythology and Urban Legends that Joanne was in.”

“So she was studying Greek gods and stuff?”

He shot me a dismissive smile and I knew my intellect was coming into question. “So much more than that. The religions of the past are the ‘mythology’ of today. Zeus and Hades perform the same functions as the gods of today’s religions do. They were a way for people to explain the unexplainable. They were a conduit between humans and the divine. But our lore, our stories are even more important. They seek to unveil that which is hidden.”

“And what is hidden, Professor?” I asked, interested in his answer to my question. He had the look of a man who truly believed.

And then it was gone. He smiled and it was a smooth expression. He was back to lecturing. “Our hidden desires, of course. That which we desire is what mythological creatures represent. And our fears. Do you know that to this day, true Romany gypsies still bury their dead standing up?”

I returned his smile with one of my own. He was speaking my language. “Yes, they do it so when their dead relatives become revenants, they will only be able to walk forward through the dirt rather than clawing their way to the surface and giving in to the insatiable desire to consume living flesh.”

He clasped those super soft hands together. “Very good, Ms. Atwood. I’m rather surprised. It’s a small folk legend, but still practiced in some areas. The dead consume living flesh to become immortal.”

“Like vampires?” I tried to lead the discussion to my place of interest. Joanne was obviously involved with a vampire. At least, according to Darren, she was. It would be interesting to see if she was studying them as well.

He shook his head and frowned. “Not at all. A revenant is nothing more than a zombie with reasonable intelligence. It insults the vampire to put the two in the same sentence. A zombie mindlessly seeks flesh. The flesh is temporary—useful but dumb. Blood is the basis of life. It holds the soul. This is the nourishment the vampire seeks.”

I wanted to roll my eyes, but I was turning over a new leaf. I nodded like he was telling me something important. “I understand. Vampires are important in this class of yours?”

Professor Hamilton’s eyes lit up, and I knew I’d hit on something. “Vampires are the pinnacles of our desires, Ms. Atwood. They are death and life immortal. They are the gods of this age.”

I couldn’t argue with him on that. Pop culture wise they were experiencing a renaissance. You couldn’t turn around without another brooding vampire trying to sink his fangs in to someone. I wondered if Daniel had seen Twilight. I doubted seriously that he had ever once sparkled.

“I really liked ‘Buffy,’” I admitted with fondness.

He huffed, showing his utter disdain. “I’m talking about the real thing, Ms. Atwood. Vampires have been taken over by simpering romance novelists and their ridiculous female fans. The true vampire is a creature of great darkness. They don’t spend their time whining over human females. They are the bringers of death to the unworthy and life immortal to the blessed few.”

Which proved that the good professor didn’t know crap about vampires. My father had, for the most part, avoided vampires like the plague. He told me he avoided them because they were dying out on their own anyway, but I thought it was because they were too badass to risk a confrontation with. What the professor had wrong was how a person is made a vampire. They aren’t. You’re either born one or not, and no one can tell who’s a vampire until they die and rise again. I heard a rumor a few years back that a king could actually sense latent vampires and turn them while they’re vital, but as far as I knew it was just a rumor. A vampire king is so rare as to be legendary. It’s a story vampires tell fledglings to scare the crap out of them.

“So you sat around and talked about vampires?” I didn’t need to set him straight. He wouldn’t believe me anyway.

He sat forward, his eyes narrowing. “You don’t believe in the supernatural?”

“You would be surprised what I believe in.”

“Imagine if they were real. Lonely gods walking the earth. What if you could talk to one? What would you ask it? Would you worship the vampire? Leave it gifts and pray for the hand of those who defy death to seek you out in kindness?” He gave me a moment to ponder his completely pretentious words. Then he sat back and let out a deep breath. “These are the questions we ask.”

It was time that I asked one of my own. “Professor Hamilton, were you having a sexual affair with Joanne Taylor?”