let the right one in

The call came late at home after another long, hard day full of surprises. He was on the john reading the paper when he heard the muted ring of the phone downstairs. Halfway through the third ring, there was the faint sound of Flora’s voice. When she stopped talking, he knew it was for him.

As he had anticipated, there was a soft knock on the bathroom door. “Kurt, there’s a call for you.” He debated asking her to tell whoever it was to call back.

“Who is it?”

“A detective in Norrköping.”

“Norrköping?”

“Yes. Do you want me to tell him you’ll call back?”

Eli . . .

Eelii . . .

Footsteps on the cold stone of the darkened hallway

Coming for me, coming in the whistling dark

Run and hide, hide where He won't find me My feet go pitter patter

The flames flutter in their iron flickering shadows they cast

Try one door then the next but they're all locked, pull and pull but they won't open

Growing louder getting closer I'm so afraid

(St. Michael the archangel defend us in battle . . .)

Chapter 15

11 AUGUST 1983 – 9:30 p.m.

Maria woke up in the dark, sticky-mouthed and a little cold. As she turned onto her side and pulled the blanket around herself, she felt the slight tug of the band-aid on her left arm, and recalled the events of the previous night. Oskar and Eli had drunk from her, and later had fallen asleep with her. She opened her eyes--where were they now? She was alone on her mattress, but--

. . . she was not alone. What was that sound?

11 AUGUST 1983 – 8:13 p.m. Danderyd

The minister spoke the words to the steady beep of the cardiorespiratory monitor and poured the water onto the infant’s forehead. It trickled down his temple until it was caught on a folded pad of clean, white cloth. “I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”

Oskar watched the balconies of Maria’s apartment from behind a large willow bush with Maria, looking for any sign of Eli. He grew nervous when some lights came on briefly and then went off, but he continued to wait as Eli had directed.

Chapter 12

Eli had showered and was drying the bottom of the tub with a towel when he got back to their apartment on Skäftingebacken. He had beaten the sunrise by fifteen minutes.

“I was starting to worry about you,” she said warmly as he stood in the bathroom doorway and began to strip off his sopping-wet clothes. She offered him a towel as he pulled off his shirt, then leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.

He deliberately beat her to the punch for the evening’s report. “So, how did things go tonight?”

“Eli, look.” Oskar held open Christensen’s wallet and showed it to Eli. “He was a Canadian from Vancouver, British Columbia. And I think he had a daughter.”

Eli looked at the picture, scuffed and worn from years spent pressed in a wallet, and saw a smiling, brown-haired girl of about fourteen with braces.

Oskar lowered the wallet into his lap and stared at the corpse. “We picked someone’s dad.”

24 JULY 1983

John Christensen stretched and began to put away his pastels. It was becoming too dark and windy to do any more work on his picture, and he was getting hungry, so it was time to call it quits.

19 JULY 1983

“Oww, Eli! It hurts! It hurts! It—it . . . oh—look at that.”

Eli and Oskar lay side by side on Oskar’s mattress. Oskar was holding his hand up in front of him, watching as it transformed itself before their eyes into a claw.

“I know it hurts! But don’t worry, Oskar—it won’t feel like that forever! The more you do it, the less pain you’ll feel.”

“It felt like I had my hand in a light socket or something,” Oskar replied as the tingling dissipated down his arm. His mouth gaped and he stared, wide-eyed, at his transformed hand.

5 JULY 1983

“Just try again.”

“It’s not working. This is stupid.”

“Just picture it in your mind, and it’ll happen.”

Oskar sighed. “Eli, we’ve been at this for half an hour. I’m no good at this. I can’t.”

“You don’t know what you can do and what you can’t.”

“Okay. I’ll try again.”

Oskar closed his eyes, leaned back on the couch, and tried to concentrate.

. . . My teeth are fangs. Sharp, pointy teeth. Fangs, fangs, fangs . . .

He groaned in frustration. “I don’t get it!”