Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

connected with such a man could prove dangerous. I ask only that you give the matter serious consideration, and keep your wits about you—whatever your decision may be.
Yours ever,
—H
History would remember the next day as Lincoln’s “fatal first” of January.
Well, it is done. I have destroyed the woman I love without so much as an explanation. I have destroyed her happiness and my own. I am the most miserable creature that ever lived, and I deserve whatever sorrows are in store. I expect—nay, I hope there will be many.
Abe had called on Mary that morning and broken off the engagement, muttering through his tears (“I recall not a word of it”) before running out into the cold.
I knew that I would never be able to shake her father’s hand again, nor look him in the eye without betraying my rage. To think that my children would share his blood! A man who conspired against his own kind! A man who profited from the deaths of innocents, their color be damned! I could not bear it. And what was I to do? Tell Mary the truth? Impossible. I had but one choice.
For the second time in five years, his thoughts turned to suicide. And for the second time in five years, it was his mother’s dying wish that kept him from following through.
John T. Stuart was visiting with relatives. All but a few of his fellow legislators had left to welcome the New Year in their respective districts. There was only one person in all of Springfield whom Abe could turn to.
“But you are in love with her!” said Speed. “Why in the devil would you go and do such a stupid thing?”
Abe sat on his bed in the tiny room above A. Y. Ellis & Co.—the bed he shared with the half-mad “pestering fly” buzzing about the room.
“I ache to be with her, Speed… but I cannot.”
“On account of her father? The same man who gave you his blessing not—not six or eight days ago?”
“The same.”
“You ache to be with her… her father has given his blessing. You must explain how courtship works here in Illinois, for I have clearly misunderstood some part of it.”
“I have since learned that her father is a party to wickedness. That he keeps the worst kind of company. I can have none of it.”
“If I loved a woman as you love Mary, her father could dine with the devil himself and it would not alter my affections.”
“You do not understand….”
“Then make me understand! How can I be of any use if all you do is speak in riddles?”
Abe could feel it on the tip of his tongue.
“You can trust me to keep any secret, Lincoln.”
“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