by Mari Mancusi
And now she’s after us. Which means I may no longer need to know the 411 on stopping the transformation, mainly due to the fact that I’ll be reduced to a pile of gray dust way before it takes place. Instamatic cremation.
Will my life ever be normal again?
10
Confessions of a Teenage Knight in Shining Armor
We reach what appears to be a steel door, illuminated by a single torch. Magnus pulls it open and grabs the torch. We enter a tiny room, about the size of an elevator, with no furniture. The vampire locates a keypad panel and presses in a code. The door clangs shut.
Letting out a sigh of relief, Magnus affixes his torch to a bracket on the wall and slumps down to the floor. I join him.
“Are you okay?” he asks, turning to look at me. He’s still breathing heavily.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I say, for some reason a bit touched by his concern. After all, he just watched his three-thousand-year-old boss go up in a pile of dust. Probably pretty darn traumatic for the guy. And still, he’s worried about how I’m doing.
“That was far too close,” he says, still breathing in ragged puffs. “I can’t believe she got Lucifent.”
“No kidding,” I say. I look around the room. It appears to be made completely of some kind of slick, shiny metal. “What is this place?”
“It’s a safe room,” Magnus explains. “There are a few feet of solid titanium separating us from the rest of the compound. She’ll never get in here. We just have to wait it out. She’ll leave eventually. After all, she’s got school in the morning.”
“So let me get this straight,” I say, pulling my knees to my chest and trying to still my heart. “That chick was a vampire slayer?”
“Indeed,” Magnus says, “Every generation there is born a girl destined to slay all the vampires, rid the world of evil, yada, yada, yada.” He shakes his head. “Which is absolutely ridiculous. We’re not evil. We don’t even kill humans anymore. We keep to ourselves, donate millions to charity, the works.”
Interesting. “But the slayers don’t buy this, I take it?”
“Please,” he snorts. “A few years back, we launched this whole PR campaign. Vamps Are People Too, we called it. We sent the parent company, Slayer Inc., press releases, Quick-Time movies highlighting some of the more philanthropic among our ranks, everything. But did that convince them? No. They refused to listen. Insisted it was their destiny, whatever the bloody hell that means. It doesn’t matter to Slayer Inc. that some of the greatest artists and musicians of our time are vampires. That they are killing off valuable members of society who would never hurt a fly.”
“Ooh, musicians? Like who? Marilyn Manson? The guy from Nine Inch Nails? Green Day?” Ooh, I hope Billie Joe is a vamp. Then maybe I’ll get to meet him. Maybe he even lives right here in the coven. You know, with riches and rock stars, I gotta admit there may be SOME good things about being a vampire.
“Their identities are secret,” Magnus, the spoilsport, explains. “I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.”
“Technically aren’t I already dead?” I ask with a smile, remembering our previous conversation.
“Once again, you fail to grasp the concept of ‘figure of speech.’”
“Yeah, yeah. So who are the musicians?”
He groans. “You’re like a pit bull with a bone, aren’t you?”
I grin proudly.
“Well, you’ve seen Behind the Music on VH1, right? Rockumentaries on gifted musicians who are always dying young in the second half hour?”
“‘When we come back, the tragedy that shook their world,’” I quote with a giggle.
“Um, right.” Magnus says, rolling his eyes. “Well, do you honestly think every one of these stars just had really bad luck in the tragic accident department?”
Hmm. I never really thought about it that way before. I’d always attributed the multitude of rocker deaths to the live fast, die young, leave a good-looking corpse, James Dean theory of life. But could it be that they were already rocking out as good-looking corpses, only to be killed a second time by a destiny-deluded Slayer with no appreciation for rock-’n’-roll?
You know, if I get out of this, I should write a tell-all book about the vampire world. Maybe I could get on Oprah. Or at the least The Daily Show . . .
“Do you remember that program that used to be on TV?” Magnus continues. “The one about the Slayer? That sympathizer Joss Whedon wrote the character to be so noble and good. Always saving the world from this vampire or that demon. But it’s not like that in real life. The real-life Slayer is a vindictive ugly bitch with no compassion.” He stares up at the dark ceiling. “And now she’s killed Lucifent. This is a sad day for vampire kind indeed.”
“For Sunny kind, as well,” I add, frowning. “Seeing as he was just about to tell me how I could reverse the whole vampire transformation thing. Does this mean I’m going to be stuck as a bloodsucker for eternity? Or until I get dusted by some Slayer?”
Magnus shrugs. “Maybe not,” he says. “Lucifent has a whole library of ancient texts. Certainly one of them will have the answer. Once we get out of here, we can take a look.”
Okay, that makes me feel a tad better. Maybe there’s hope after all.
“Oh, Lucifent,” Magnus moans suddenly, banging the back of his head against the titanium wall. That’s gotta hurt, even for a vamp. “Why did it have to be you?”
“You seem awfully upset about a guy who was screaming and calling you mean names just a minute ago,” I venture, not quite sure how to react to this sudden display of emotion.
Magnus turns to look at me, his eyes filled with bloody tears, which is kind of gross, actually. I wonder if he sweats blood, too. That sure would make for some interesting gym habits.
“Lucifent was my sire,” he explains in a slow voice. “My original blood mate, though we didn’t call them that back then. He was the one to turn me into a vampire.”
“Ah.” It’s starting to make sense now. I feel an unwilling pang of pity for poor Magnus. Seeing Lucifent, his vampire daddy, go up in a puff of smoke must be pretty traumatizing for the guy. In fact, I’m amazed he had the wherewithal to make sure I got out alive as well.
“So why did you want to become a vampire?” I ask curiously. “Was it the riches and power, like Rayne wants?”
Magnus shakes his head. “Hardly,” he says. “Things were a lot different back when I was turned.”
He straightens his legs out along the floor and stretches his hands above his head in a yawn. I refuse to notice how this stretched-out position accentuates his washboard abs. Nope, they’re not even a blip on my radar.
“Different how?”
“It’s a long story, actually.”
I shrug. “We’ve got nothing but time.”
“Too right.” He grins, ruefully. “Well, it all started about a thousand years ago. When I served as one of King Arthur’s Knights of the Round Table.”
I do a double take. “King Arthur? So he really did exist?”
Magnus scowls and gives me one of his famous ‘are you kidding me, you babe in the woods?’ looks. “Of course he existed,” he says, with mondo indignation.
“Oh. Okay. But I thought—”
“Uh, up until yesterday you also thought there was no such thing as vampires.”
He has a point there.
“So you worked for the guy? Sat at the Round Table? Hung out in Camelot?” I try to picture Magnus in shining armor instead of his typical shining Armani. I bet he was pretty sexy as a knight. All the damsels probably went crazy over him. I wonder if he had a wife. Kids. Ugh. Why does the thought of him having kids scar me so much? I mean, who cares? So he had a life a thousand years before I was born. Big whoop.
“Did you know Lancelot?” I ask, to get my mind off the scarring kids thing.
“Lancelot,” Magnus snorts disgustedly. “Why is it that everyone always asks about that pansy? I just love how all the legends have been twisted to make
him seem like some kind of hero. The guy hardly ever showed up to fight. He was too busy shagging Queen Guinevere behind the king’s back. I mean, thanks to him, poor Arthur lost his throne and Camelot was destroyed. So yeah,” he says, sarcastically. “Not my favorite person, let me tell you.”
There goes one childhood fantasy flushed down the toilet.
“Never mind about Lancelot. How did you get turned into a vampire? Was it by Merlin? The Lady of the Lake? Ooh, I know. Morgan le Fay, the witch. She did it, right?” I’d paid attention in our Arthurian legends unit in history class last year. The stories were too juicy to resist.
“As I was saying,” Magnus continues, ignoring my guesses, “we knights were sent to the eastern lands on a crusade. Our mission was to convert the pagans and, more importantly, find the Holy Grail.” He turns to look at me. “That’s the cup that Jesus Christ used during the Last Supper.”
“I know what it is. I’m not stupid,” I say. “I mean, I’ve seen Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. And Monty Python, of course.”
Magnus screws up his face. “Um, right. Well, in any case, not long after we arrived, our order was captured by the Moors in the city of Bethlehem. We were thrown into prison. Beaten and starved until we were very close to death. I thought my life would end in that prison. End at age eighteen.” Magnus pauses, then adds, “But really, that’s where it all began.”
I nod. “Okay, go on.” This is getting to be a darn good story. For a moment, I almost forget I’m stuck in a deep, dark, underground titanium room with only a vampire to keep me company.
“Back then vampires didn’t have donor blood banks like we do today. So in order to get the blood they needed to survive, they were forced to suck it from the necks of unwilling humans. Very un-PC, I know, but what can you do? It was a barbaric age all around. Anyway, one night, Lucifent arrived at the Moorish prison to search for victims. When he saw the torture we prisoners had endured, he was horrified. He couldn’t believe such cruelty existed.”
“And this from a man who ripped open throats on a nightly basis.”
Magnus frowns. “He did it in the most humane manner possible,” he insists, shooting me a glare.
“Okay, okay. I’ll stop ragging on your sire. Jeez,” I say, a bit sulkily.
Magnus shakes his head, then continues. “So, in an act of raw passion, Lucifent murdered all the guards, draining their blood instead of ours for his midnight snack. They didn’t even see him coming. Then, when he was done, he set us all free.”
“Well that was awfully nice of him,” I say, trying to earn back my brownie points.
“But I was too weak to get away,” Magnus explains. “My muscles had atrophied from nearly a year’s imprisonment and I couldn’t get up. So Lucifent asked me if I would like to die, or if I’d prefer eternal life.” Magnus shrugs. “You can probably guess what I chose.”
“Wow. That’s some story!” I say, impressed. I try to imagine what it’d be like to live in the twelfth century. To go on crusades and be captured, tortured, with no Geneva Convention to stop them from doing their worst. “So you’ve been a vampire ever since?”
“Yes. Through the rise of the British Empire, the founding of America, the Industrial Revolution, the Civil War. Through the Roaring Twenties and the Great Depression. World War I, World War II. Kennedy to Khrushchev. Disco and techno. The Electric Slide and the Boot Scootin’ Boogie. All of J-Lo’s marriages and P. Diddy’s name changes. You name it, I’ve lived through it.”
“And are you happy? Do you like being a vampire?”
Magnus is silent for a moment. “In a way,” he says at last. “Eternal life is a great gift. I’ve had so many adventures. So many experiences. At the same time, it’s a bit . . . lonely.”
“Lonely?”
“All my mortal friends have been dead a thousand years,” he says softly, staring at the ground. “And until you’re matched with your blood mate, which doesn’t happen till you hit the millennium mark and your blood is properly aged, you’re not really supposed to get into any serious relationships.”
Wow. This guy hasn’t had a date in a thousand years? No wonder he’s so cranky!
“And now, just my luck, I’d finally been approved for a blood mate. A partner I’m allowed to love and care for and spend the rest of eternity with. And then I go and screw up royally and bite the wrong girl.” He slams a fist against the floor. “Now I’ll probably be doomed to walk the earth alone for the rest of my life.”
I study him sympathetically. Poor guy. All he wanted was a nice girlfriend who appreciated him. Instead he got saddled with whiny, unappreciative me.
“No offense to you and all,” he adds, looking up at me, his eyes sad. “You’re a sweet girl. But obviously you have no interest in being my companion. And to tell you the truth, I’d rather have no blood mate than one who abhors me and thinks I’m some kind of monster.”
A pang of guilt stabs at my gut. This whole time I’ve been nothing but selfish. Thinking only of myself and what a pain this whole vampire mix-up has been for me. I never considered how much it’s probably screwed him up as well. Here he was, finally getting the blood mate he’s been waiting a millennium for. A willing partner to share eternity with. (Even if it was just my silly twin sister.) And now everything’s all screwed up.
“So do you love Rayne?” I ask curiously, wondering how much of a bond pre-blood mates share.
Magnus shakes his head. “I barely know her. You’re not allowed that much contact before the actual transformation. It’s sort of like how they used to do arranged marriages back in the old days. The Council decides on your blood mate based on some very complex compatibility algorithms. After all, once you’re mated, you’re stuck together for eternity, so it’s something they take pretty seriously.”
“And they thought you and Rayne would be a good fit?”
“Evidently. And I think they were probably right. I met her a few times during the training and she seems like a brilliant girl. And call me a shallow male—” he adds with a grin “—but she’s obviously very beautiful as well.”
I can feel myself blushing down to my toes. If he thinks Rayne is beautiful, that means he thinks I’m beautiful by default, seeing as we’re identical and all. Not that I care what he thinks. Really. After all, there’s no reason to start getting all interested in this guy. I need to concentrate on finding a way to turn back to a human, not finding excuses to flirt with a thousand-year-old vampire. Even if the vampire in question is an Orlando Bloom look-alike who used to serve King Arthur.
Besides, let’s be frank here. Magnus is a royal pain in the butt. Annoying. Self-serving. The kind of guy who only thinks of himself and doesn’t care about the needs of others.
“You look cold. Here, take my coat,” Magnus says, pulling his leather jacket off and handing it to me. I reluctantly shrug it on.
Okay, maybe not self-centered. But definitely a jerk. Mean and arrogant.
“Don’t worry, Sunny,” he says, putting an arm around my shoulders and pulling me close to him. I grudgingly fold into his way-too-comfortable embrace. “I promise to find a way to turn you back. No matter what it takes.”
Whoa. He’s not making this easy for me, is he?
11
Garlic and Sunshine and Raw Meat—Oh My!
We remain in the titanium room for hours. I actually fall asleep for a short bit, waking up with my head on Magnus’s shoulder, which is way embarrassing, let me tell you. I hope I didn’t drool on him at any point.
Finally, after what seems an eternity of waiting, the computerized female voice announces that, just like Elvis, “The Slayer has left the building.”
We exit the room and head back into the main coven. The place is deserted. Magnus explains that most of the vamps were already out feeding when the Slayer arrived and most likely don’t yet realize that their fearless leader has been taken from them.
He leads me to the exit, telling me he’s going to take me home first, then return to r
esearch my reversal in the library. At first I suggest I help him read, but then he admits that he’s planning on feeding in between taking me home and researching, which I decide I’m not ready to take part in. I mean, sure, I get the fact that his donors are willing and screened, but the idea of watching him drain them of blood just isn’t what I’d call an entertaining nighttime outing. And anyway, Magnus promised he’ll text-message me the second he finds something.
So I get home around five A.M. (The ride in the convertible Jag is heavenly, BTW!) I know I should be exhausted, but I’m wide awake. I tiptoe to my room, attempting not to wake up my mom, since I don’t think she’s going to buy the “I only missed curfew ’cause I was hiding out from a Vampire Slayer who killed Haley Joel Osment right before my very eyes” excuse.
Luckily she’s a deep sleeper.
I arrive at my bedroom and switch on the light. My eyes fall on a figure asleep in my bed. Rayne. She must have tried to stay up waiting for me. I crawl into bed beside her and turn out the light. She rolls over with a soft moan.
“Oh,” she murmurs. “I didn’t realize you were home.”
“Just got,” I say, pulling the covers over me. After spending the night on a hard titanium floor, I find the bed’s softness more than welcoming to my achy, tired body.
“So what happened? Did Lucifent turn you back? Are you a human again?”
I sigh. “No. He was about to tell us how to reverse the process. Said it was simple and everything. But then he got dusted by the Slayer.”
Rayne sits up in bed. Even in the predawn darkness I can see her wide eyes. “The Slayer?”
“Yeah, once a generation there’s evidently some girl who’s destined to kill vampires or something like that. Like in Buffy.”
“I know what the Slayer is,” Rayne says impatiently. “I just can’t believe she got Lucifent! That’s terrible. Such a great loss for vampire kind worldwide.”
“I don’t know.” I shrug. “He seemed like kind of an asshole to me.”
“Sunny, Lucifent has done so much for the coven. You don’t even know. If you’d read my blog—”
