Fangs

by Anna Katmore

  I pout. “There was a spider!”

  “It’s an old house. There’ll always be spiders. Now put that dinosaur away and take a deep breath. He’ll be here soon.”

  My head snaps to the window. She’s right, the sun is setting. Ecstatic shivers zing along my skin. Quentin said he’d be here before nightfall. That’s in less than thirty minutes.

  I put the vacuum cleaner back into the niche in the hallway, but the hose keeps falling across the corridor. Trembling fingers are not a big help while doing housework. Then again, the vacuum really is a dinosaur, and I don’t want Quentin to get slain the first time he comes into the house—like a regular person through the door to finally meet my grandmother.

  He’s been in my room, using the apple tree as a ladder to my window half of the summer, but he never stays long. The smell of garlic in the cottage was still too intense for his sensitive nose. It was only recently that the odor faded after Nana used white clary sage to smoke out every single room. And she hasn’t taken a single garlic pill since the night that I came home pumped full of vampire blood.

  I’ve been waiting for a chance to introduce my immortal boyfriend to my peregrine grandmother for weeks. They are, after all, two of the most important people in my life. Letting Quentin meet my parents after my summer vacation will be an entirely different kind of adventure…

  Annoyed by the uncooperative vacuum cleaner, I grab the thing and carry it to the basement. Only when I stop in front of the closed door at the bottom of the stairs do I realize that I haven’t been in the cellar yet. Ever. After Nana told me that she’s some sort of seer, I thought about venturing down here a couple of times. Now that I have, I wonder what stopped me…

  Admittedly, a slight feeling of excitement grips me at finally sneaking a peek inside. What if the basement is filled with dusty shelves full of old grimoires? Or jars with pickled toad eyes, and boxes containing frog legs and spider tongues? I grab the knob and twist. It’s open.

  “Abby?”

  Whoa! I spin around, dropping the vacuum cleaner on my toe. “Crud!”

  With the light from behind, Nana is an ominous silhouette on the landing. “Where are you taking my Hoover?” I can’t quite make out her face, but I hear the curious and suggestive smile in her voice.

  “The hallway is too full. I just want to get it out of the way.”

  “By storing it in the basement?” There’s a hint of reproach in her tone. I nod. Dammit, will she make me bring it up again? “There’s no room down there for it. You can put it in my bedroom.”

  And, here we go.

  I grind my teeth. What’s so special about the basement that she always catches me right before I get the chance to open the darn door? Murmuring some incomprehensible words, I trudge upstairs, but halfway up, I halt as a sudden thought hits me. I put the vacuum cleaner down and stare my grandmother right in the face. “You know what? I’ll bring it up in a moment. I just want to see what’s behind that door. Won’t be long.”

  “Abigail!”

  Ignoring her soft protest, I skip back down and shove the door open before any miracle in this house can stop me. Feeling along the wall, I find a light switch and flip it. A single old ceiling lamp flickers on with something like fifteen watts or so. Cobwebs hang in silky threads from it.

  With a racing heart, I look around the twenty-square-meter room. And then my chin smacks on my chest as I find…absolutely nothing that would even remotely suggest that this is the cave of a witch. What a disappointment!

  My old rocking horse stands in the corner, some pieces of furniture I remember from my childhood are stacked against one wall, and what must be a gazillion pairs of woolly socks sit in cardboard boxes next to the door.

  I fish one sock out of a box and hold it up in front of Nana’s face as she comes down and arches an eyebrow at me. “That’s it?” I squeak. “Your secret is that you knit more socks than you can actually wear or give away?”

  “Secret?” She simpers, then throws the single sock back to its friends and pushes me out, switching off the light. “What did you expect to find there, my dear? A selection of brooms…like in a witch’s garage?”

  I frown at her. “No.” Yes. Dammit. At least it would have made a great story to tell. Or, maybe not.

  Nana shuts the door and walks upstairs with me, placing a consoling hand on the small of my back. I pick up the vacuum cleaner, but then flinch at the rumbling noise behind the basement door that sounds as if the entire north wall came down. “What was that?”

  “Nothing, my dear.” With a silly, innocent grin, Nana ushers me farther up the stairs. “Just bugs.”

  “Bugs?” With a dry expression, I glance back at the door. But my grandmother turns my face forward and pats my cheek. “Now be a sweet girl and bring the Hoover upstairs.”

  Pursing my lips, I take the dinosaur to her room and store it between the wardrobe and the wall, but adventure: basement isn’t yet completely crossed off my list.

  As I come back into the kitchen, the doorbell rings and dissipates all thoughts of mysterious cellars. Nana and I freeze on the spot, both gaping at each other. She gets free of her paralysis first and shoves me toward the door. Normally, she doesn’t get antsy about anything, but today, she’s officially meeting her very first vampire, and I know that it kept her awake most of last night.

  She smooths her conservative dark dress down her front, adjusts her apron, and nods when she’s ready to see Dracula’s heir. I draw in a deep breath before I pull open the door.

  “Wow!” My eyes pop wide, and a broad grin sneaks to my face at how nicely Quentin cleans up. The white dress shirt and loosely fastened tie around his neck stir awake gorgeous memories as he stands in front of us, hands tucked into the pockets of his black jeans. I reach out and let the silk run dreamily through my fingers. Obviously not missing my reaction, he waggles his eyebrows at me. The left corner of his mouth quickly twitches up in a smirk, but when he turns to my grandma, he gets all serious again.

  “Hello, Mrs. Potts.” He pulls his hands out of his pockets, slipping one to his back and holding the other politely out to Nana. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you.”

  Her hand moves forward, but then it hovers, and just like a little girl not daring to touch some toad, she giggles and pulls it back to her chest. Holy mother of God, she’s so nervous, it’s actually cute. Quentin chuckles and slowly drops his hand. We bet on whether Nana would actually touch him. I was sure she wouldn’t. He said she’d be cool. Looks like I won.

  Nana surprises me when she suddenly reaches out again. This time, she almost grabs his hand, but then lifts hers at the last moment and pinches his cheek. “Do come in, dear boy,” she prompts in her usual happy sing-song voice, sounding just a tiny bit proud of herself.

  My chin drops. She really did it, if not in the way either of us expected. While she spins around and leads the way into the living room, Quentin enters, closes my mouth with one finger, and drawls, “You’re so going to take a sip of me later.”

  I swallow. Losing the bet, there’s no way I can get around licking a drop of vampire blood from his finger tonight. I know why he picked that condition for our wager. He said he wanted me to get used to the idea of a vampire lifestyle. Feeding me blood is obviously part of it. The thought makes me shudder.

  “You know I can make you like it,” he chuckles as I shut the door, and then he slides an arm around me, heading after Nana.

  “Tasting cherry-flavored blood.” I roll my eyes. “Yum.”

  The plate with sweets on the coffee table and three cups on saucers around a steaming teapot drive away the nasty image as we enter the living room together. Nana wanted to arrange this encounter as normally as possible, so she had me asking Quentin what he could eat and drink that wouldn’t interfere with his special diet. “Cookies,” was his immediate answer. The sly grin when he said it gave me goosebumps and made me smile.

  Quentin and I lower to the sofa, while Nana takes a seat on the broad bro
wn easy-chair opposite us. She fills our cups with peppermint tea and shovels spoonsful of sugar into her brew. At her offering, Quentin takes a cookie from the plate and then rolls his eyes in bliss as he bites off one half. He usually moans when he has that kind of expression, but today he keeps it down, too polite to make that sound in front of a stranger.

  Even though Nana only takes a small sip of her tea and then tensely wrings her hands in her lap, she watches him with a big, thrilled grin the entire time. I guess I would feel the same way if we had Count Dracula here for a visit, so I don’t really blame her for behaving like a girl in a baby dragon petting zoo.

  Three minutes later, however, she jerks to her feet and draws in a deep breath of something close to relief. “Very well. I should get ready now if I don’t want to be late for the card night with my friends. And Esther still needs to get milked.”

  Right. I laugh at her excuse. Maybe next time we can keep her in the room a little longer. Baby steps. If I can get comfortable with the thought of perhaps changing into a vampire one day—it’s a very, very slight maybe—then she can get over her fear of the undead and spend some time with my boyfriend.

  After she flitters from the room in her fluffy slippers, Quentin puts the half-eaten cookie back onto the plate. He once told me that the reason vampires really don’t eat human food is because their bodies don’t function like ours anymore. They can digest only the barest amounts of it. Anything more than a bite and they have to throw up. And Quentin hates throwing up Nana’s apple strudel.

  “Want to watch a movie?” I suggest since we’ll soon have the entire house to ourselves. He nods and pulls me to his side, leaning back as I turn on the TV with the remote. As usual, there’s only Romanian stuff running, and neither of us understands a word. But I don’t mind in the least because when his fingers start to fondle the side of my throat, and his gaze wanders to my face more often than the screen, a different kind of movie starts playing in my head.

  His hand shapes to the back of my neck, pulling me closer until he can press his lips to mine. He tips to the side, dragging me with him, and when I lie half on top of him, he deepens the kiss. Unfortunately, only seconds later, my vibrating phone on the coffee table breaks our romantic moment.

  With a wipe of my thumb, I unlock the display and smile. “It’s a text from Rosemarie.” She finally answered the one I sent her this morning.

  “What does she say?” Quentin murmurs as he keeps nibbling my neck and sending pleasant tingles through my body. Looks as if the vampire is hungry.

  “Hey, that’s cool about them meeting,” I read aloud to him. “Things are finally getting better here. I’ve got the wolf side pretty much under control now. And if I don’t, Trayan has it covered.” It’s so good to hear that because her messages during the first few weeks after she went to Scotland sounded really sad and frustrated. “We’re actually starting to get along. Most of the time. But the dipshit bit me last night. Whatever he did that for…”

  Quentin’s chest rocks me as he begins to laugh. “Oh, she will figure out what that means soon enough.”

  I cock an eyebrow at him, but he only smirks. The text ends with a crunchy face smiley and one of a howling wolf. She also sent greetings to everyone.

  Quentin takes the phone out of my hand, puts it back on the coffee table, and pulls me closer for another kiss. I like making out with him on the sofa. This is new and exciting. Until we hear the sound of the door, and Nana comes back inside. As if zapped by lightning, we jerk apart, and I quickly wipe my swollen lips with the back of my hand, feeling a blush in my cheeks.

  “Well then, you two love bats,” Nana says and giggles as she appears on the threshold, “the goats are all set, and I’m off to see the girls now.”

  “Have a nice evening, Mrs. Potts,” Quentin says quickly, pushing me back to an upright position.

  Smiling at him, Nana takes off her apron and hangs it over the backrest of the chair. “Until next time, young vampire,” she replies and leaves the room. But in the doorframe, she stops and frowns as if she just heard some dubious news on the radio. Without a word, she comes back, fishes for something in the magical pocket of her apron, and then puts a small silver packet on the mantel.

  As she walks off to her bedroom to change, Quentin and I stare at the little thing across the room, dumbfounded. He finally rubs the back of his neck and murmurs, “Did your grandma just leave a—”

  “No!” Or did she? Jesus Christ!

  With a deep frown, I rise from the sofa. I take Quentin’s hand and pull him with me. Even with Nana gone soon, I prefer to head up to my room—for privacy. She once said that she couldn’t see things in my future where the vampire is concerned, but I start to wonder if that’s still true.

  When Quentin takes a detour to the mantel and pockets the item with a mischievous grin, I turn my head away so he can’t see the second blush on my cheeks within two minutes. Our fingers laced again, we pass my grandmother once more in the hallway. I press a kiss to her cheek. “Have fun with the old ladies,” I tell her, then wait until she shuts the door before I head upstairs with Quentin.

  We climb two steps when the front door opens again. Curious, I lean back around the corner. Nana half-slips in and grabs the broom that is propped against the wall next to the entrance.

  “What do you want with that?” I ask her as our gazes meet, and she looks totally caught. “I thought you wanted to walk over to Mitsi’s and play cards tonight?”

  “I do,” Nana replies, then she sends me a really sheepish grin and shrugs. “But brooms are faster.”

  She winks at me, giggles, and shuts the door.

  Epilogue

  In the best fairy tales, there’s always a castle.

  Quentin

  I pace the room like a tiger in a cage. It’s been hours already! “Bloody hell, how long can this take?” At the brink of my nerves shattering, I rake my hands through my hair and then groan as I lean my forehead against the wall.

  “Calm down, lad. It’s different with each person.” Uncle V plants a hand on my shoulder. I’m so glad that he and Ellie came to this important occasion. It helps to have them here. “Abigail is doing great. Why don’t you sit down and take a few deep breaths?”

  I tilt my head to him, searching his face. He doesn’t seem worried, and he’s been through this far more times than I have. So, taking his advice, I slump into the wingback chair close to the fireplace and shut my eyes, rubbing my temples. The musty smell of the dark stone walls envelops me. It brings back memories of a beautiful summer here in Romania. More than one, actually.

  Still, it’s a little strange that Abby wanted to do this here of all places. We share a flat in Norwich where she’s taking courses at the university there. I also own a castle in Aberdeenshire high up in Scotland’s North, and we could have gone to spend the vacation at my aunt and uncle’s home, too. But Abby said it all began in Ardeal, and there’s no other place she wanted to be.

  Even her parents came. Admittedly, it was quite an argument—especially between my uncle and Abigail—before she started to slowly get her parents used to the idea that their daughter’s boyfriend wasn’t quite the guy they expected. Because, yeah, even three years after she let me bite her for the first time, she hasn’t found a cure for vampirism. And nobody wants to hear the details of the torture she put me through while on the search.

  But it turned out that her father knew a lot more about our world than any of us could have guessed. In hindsight, it’s not such a big surprise at all considering he’s the son of a seer and grew up among the old Romanian legends. His wife, Gwendolyn, is a full-heart city woman from Great Britain, so it was a bit harder to ease her into the truth. Still, she hugs me every Sunday when we visit for tea, so I believe she took the news quite well in the end.

  She’s actually upstairs in the master bedroom now with Aunt Ellie and Nana. The women ushered Uncle Vlad and me out of the room when I kept checking Abby’s pulse every two minutes.

&nb
sp; “Any news, Adrian?” I hear my uncle ask. I snap my eyes open and see Abby’s dad coming down the stairs, shaking his head.

  “This is bullshit!” I protest in frustration, pushing myself up from the chair. “That’s my girlfriend up there, and I’m going to stay with her until it’s over.”

  Adrian gives me an encouraging clap on the shoulder as we pass, and I dash up the wide, stone stairway, taking a hard left at the landing. Without knocking, I enter and ignore the reprimanding scowls of the three women strewn about the bedroom. “I’m taking over the watch now,” I tell them with a pout. “We belong together. Get used to it.”

  Aunt Ellie is the first one to crack a smile and nod. She places a hand on Gwendolyn’s arm. “Shall I make us a cup of tea while we wait?” She reaches for Nana, too, and leads the ladies out into the hallway. When she looks at me over her shoulder before they round the corner, I blow her a silent, grateful kiss. Then I go to the bed and sit down beside Abby.

  Her hand is cold and pale in my lap as I trace her slender fingers with mine, one of which sports a slim ring of white gold with a garnet stone in the middle. The inside bears the date when we first met, right in this castle. It was my present to her last Christmas.

  I lace our fingers, heaving a deep sigh as I behold our joined hands. She’s so fragile. So beautiful. So a part of my eternal life…

  As her fingers suddenly twitch, I suck in a breath, and then her grip tightens around my hand. With my heart drumming frantically in my chest, I turn my head to look at her face.

  Slowly, Abigail opens her gingerbread eyes. They move around, searching. When they find me, a tiny, weak smile appears on her lips. “Hi,” she whispers.