by Jade White
Blake didn’t last for much longer. He was awake for another hour before he was finally grumpy and ready to have his dinner. She fed him the small two ounce bottle and burped him before giving him a bath and setting him down in his bassinet, warm and snug for the night.
She didn’t want to think about letting Victor into this house, but there was something inside of her that wanted answers. If he didn’t show up tonight, then she was going to know she had gone crazy, but if he did, then she knew she was in trouble.
The moment she stepped out of her room, she heard two sharp knocks on the door to her apartment and she froze. There was no way this was happening. What was he, some sort of magical creature? She slowly approached the door and looked through the peephole and saw him standing there in the hallway, carved out of marble and waiting for her. She cautiously gripped the door handle and contemplated her options.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” the voice inside of her mind echoed, whispering as it rolled around in there, uninvited.
She slowly opened the door and looked at Victor who had taken off his sunglasses and was standing in front of her as charming and as regal looking as he had ever looked. She hated that his physical presence made her ache and want him so badly. There was something wrong with her. She knew she was a glutton for emotional punishment now. There was no doubt about it.
Closing the door behind her, she looked at him and waited for some kind of natural response so this would all make make sense to her. She didn’t know what he could say to her that was going to make it any clearer or more understandable to her, but she had to find out what was happening.
“What do you want?” she asked him nervously.
“I want to clear up some things for you,” he said, looking at her. “First things first, you should know that you’re in danger. Both of you are. The night I slept with you, I was on the run from some very sinister figures and unfortunately, they have all picked up on you by now and they know Blake is my son. My attempt to protect you and draw them away has failed, but you clearly don’t want or need my help, so I’ll just keep our contact to information delivery.”
“How am I hearing your voice inside of my head?” she asked him.
She was nervous to know the answer to that particular question and it was enough to make her think that she was going insane. There was no way that you could talk to someone without using your voice, she thought. What she had just experienced was something out of a science fiction movie.
“I am vampire, Shawna,” he said with all seriousness.
She looked at the features on his handsome, pale face and she half expected him to burst out laughing at the absurdity of it, but there was no smile, no jolly delight hidden away behind his eyes, and there was no humor in his voice.
It was all completely serious and there was something inside of her that genuinely believed the man she had been sleeping with was vampire. She didn’t know what was more disturbing to her, the fact that he had just told her this or that she genuinely believed him.
“You’re a vampire?”
She took a step back from him, remembering that vampires were not something that you wanted to stick around and get to know. She didn’t like thinking that she was standing next to a living corpse, either. The thought of it was beginning to unnerve her as she looked at him and tried to figure out what she was hearing. Her mind was trying to process it.
“Allergic to sunlight,” he said with a smile. “Addicted to blood, cold to the touch, ability to read and speak to other minds, and I never age. I’m not sure what else I can tell you, but I am truly vampire. I never age and I never die. I don’t know how it’s possible, so don’t bother wasting your time asking. All I know is that for hundreds of years, I have been wandering the earth and you’re the first woman that I’ve ever been with--”
“Bullshit,” she shook her head, not sure which part of it she was calling out as a lie, but she felt like there were significant parts of this story that weren’t true.
“Who has ever gotten pregnant,” he finished, looking at her with a confused expression on his face. He furrowed his brow and looked at her as her heart began to pound faster and faster. “I can hear your heart, you need to calm down. You’re going to have a heart attack if you don’t’ start to calm down. I’m serious. What do you need?”
“Wine,” she said to him very seriously, turning away from him and grabbing a bottle of it from her wine rack and starting to open it when it all came crashing down. “I can’t believe I had a child with a vampire.”
“Really? You’re accepting it without any need for proof?” He chuckled and walked silently past her. “There are more subtle things. I don’t have a shadow, I don’t make a sound when I walk, and I don’t have a reflection in mirrors. Most of the legends are true, but they’re kind of a grab bag wherever you go. I’m sure you’ve figured that out by now.”
“Why are you here?” she asked him. “Why would you tell me this?”
She poured herself a glass of wine and quickly took a strong drink from it and watched him, trying her hardest to convince herself that she wasn’t going to die and she was going to be completely and totally safe around him. If he wanted to kill her, he could have easily done it any time before now.
“Because you’re in danger,” he said to her very adamantly. “I’m here to offer my skills and services to you in your defense, but it doesn't sound like you’re interested in them. If you’re curious as to what’s hunting you, well, I’ll tell you that it’s other vampires. They’re the kind of vampires who don’t mind who they hurt or who gets in their way; they’re going to stop you at any cost.”
“You need to leave,” she said to him, starting to regain her senses. She wasn’t going to believe this. She suddenly realized that all of this was stupid and childish. She wasn’t going to buy into any of it. In fact, she was going to get him out of there as quickly as possible and she was never going to look back. This was the kind of childish stuff that naïve girls bought into.
“You’re kicking me out?” he asked her with a furrowed brow. “But, you’re in danger.”
“No, I’m not,” she said strongly to him. “Get out and I don’t ever want to see you again.”
“Fine,” he said, nodding after a moment of silence. He thought about what she had said to him and clearly from the expression on her face, she was not going to buy into any of it. His little ruse had failed and she wasn’t going to do any of this. She wasn’t going to play foolish idiot.
She’d fallen for his tricks once before and she wasn’t going to do it again. He reached into his pocket and fished out a card.
“If you change your mind, for any reason, you can reach me at this number.” He placed the card on the counter and she knew that she was going to tear it up the moment he left.
“Please don’t do that,” she heard in that strange inner voice of hers and she flinched at the intrusion.
“Get out,” she demanded, pointing at the door and insisting that he leave her once and for all.
“I’ll go,” he said willingly, walking toward the door and opening it.
He looked back at her one last time and she knew there was something he wanted to say to her, but she wasn’t going to hear it. She wasn’t going to buy any of it. The one thing she wanted now more than anything was to get him out of there and never have to deal with him again. He was the kind of malicious presence in her life that she wasn’t going to need. In fact, she was going to be much better off without him around her.
When the door closed, she felt herself exhale and she quickly finished her glass of wine before pouring another one. As she drank it, she contemplated the pros and cons of getting rid of that card, but something inside of her stayed her hand. One day, Blake might want to know his father and even if the man was a psycho, Blake would deserve that right. This might be the only way to ever get a hold of him. She stuffed it in her purse and refused to think about it.
CHAPTER FOUR
Of cou
rse, there was nothing she could do but think about it. All through the night, she stayed awake, thinking about the fact that she was being haunted by a specter that claimed he was a vampire. She had spent hours in the middle of the night reading up on vampires, reading everything from folktales to forums where people claimed they had been caught by vampires in the real world. The accounts were wildly strange and all of them were different, but there was one thing she settled on: Victor was a vampire.
The only thing she could figure was his physical appearance and his ability to project his voice into her mind was too much for her just to shrug off and pretend like it wasn’t something, when it clearly was. There was something happening with him and she didn’t know what it was for sure, but it creeped her out.
Her obsession followed her to work and she was spending more and more time thinking about the fact that she’d just had a child with a vampire. There had to be some kind of mortal sin that had to do with that. How could she be getting away with that? Was she going to hell now? She didn’t know, but something was off inside of her, she thought. She felt scared and nervous about everything happening to her.
As she looked at the computer screen on her desk, she was trying her hardest to get focused and find the drive she needed in order to get everything right. She was completely lost and confused about everything. What was going on in her life?
When she came to the conclusion that there was something off about what he said and there must have been something else at play, she knew she was going to have to take what he was saying with a bit of understanding and belief as well. What if he was here to warn her?
She didn’t know what she was supposed to make of that, but the night they had slept together, she had experienced the most powerful and realistic dream that she had ever had before and it was impossible for her to ignore that. It was impossible for her to walk away from it.
She had experienced a dream that was so compelling and realistic that it was still haunting her. It was more than she could handle when she had it and it had devastated her. She thought back to the shadowy figures and how they had hunted the crying baby and had come after her in the end. What if it was an omen or something?
She didn’t know what to do with that, but she knew one thing for sure, she wasn’t accomplishing anything here. Glancing over to the office where her boss was on the phone with someone, she knew that if she went up to him and told him that Blake was having a rough day, she would be able to get home early, but she needed to put in some serious work before then.
She looked at her desk and knew that in an hour, she could get more done than most of her coworkers could in half of the day. Taking a deep breath, she began to prioritize and decided it was time to work the magic. She was going to make things happen so she could get home.
When she was working for that hour, she realized there was still more that she hadn’t been thinking about, like what Victor had been doing in his absence. No matter what she did, Victor rolled around in her mind. He was bouncing around and haunting her every thought.
This wasn’t fair. She wanted to scream and shout at him, but he was nowhere to be seen.
Standing up, she finished up her work and she headed for her boss’s office. She felt nervous about lying to him and taking advantage of him, but she needed to get out of there. The sooner she could get home, the sooner she could get back to being a normal person.
“Hey, Boss,” she smiled at him politely.
His eyes lit up at the sight of her. “How’s it going, Shawna?” he asked eagerly.
“Not so hot,” she said to him nervously. “Blake’s not doing so well today and I was hoping I could jump out of here a little early and go take care of him.”
“No problem,” he said more than willing to let his star employee off a little early. “You go be a mommy and we’ll make sure that everything is just fine here.”
“You’re a life saver,” she said to him gratefully. She was appreciative, but she didn’t want to seem too eager to him. She didn’t want to seem desperate. “I’ll make up for my time off tomorrow.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he assured her. “You two have a good night. I hope he gets feeling better.”
“Thanks,” she said, returning to her desk and quickly starting to pack up her things. She knew that there wasn’t a soul in in this office who suspected ill of her or who would be considered an enemy. Even the people that she didn’t get along with still thought of her as a good employee and treated her with kindness and respect. She wanted everyone to think she was a good employee and, that under normal circumstances, she would never do this to them.
Outside on the street, she realized that it was still cloudy outside and there was something that made her very nervous about that. If vampires were real and they were actually walking around, then they were probably like Victor and could walk around when it was this cloudy. He had smelled like sunscreen, if she could recall correctly.
There was something about him that made her even more nervous when she thought about him being able to walk freely. There should be limits to that kind of power and she thought that the sunlight would be the defining factor.
All around her, the city was going on like there was nothing happening. She climbed into a cab and went as far as she could before she had to get out. She’d felt stressed and cooped up inside the car. She wished that she could tell someone. Who could she tell, though?
Who could she talk to about the fact that there were actually vampires in the world and that they were walking among everyone like they belonged and there was nothing wrong with that? She wanted to tell someone, but then she would just end up like one of those people on the internet who was shouting and shouting, but no one cared.
As she walked quickly toward her apartment building, she knew that Greta was going to get worried about her when she showed up disheveled and out of order for the second day in a row, but she couldn’t help it.
As she stopped and glanced over her shoulder, she felt like there were people watching her. She could feel eyes on her and she felt like she was in black waters with sharks coming for her in all directions. There was a terror growing inside of her, swelling and rising with each passing second that she wasn’t home with her child.
She didn’t know how she was going to cope with this, but she needed to find a way to get a hold of herself quickly.
She was absolutely certain that she was being followed as she entered her building and watched a man who was as pale as the moon walk past the building slowly, wearing sunglasses and looking inside through the glass doors. William, the doorman, didn’t seem to notice the man at all and gave him nothing more than a passing glance.
That made her feel worse than ever. What was wrong with William? Didn’t he see this stalker passing the building and wasn’t he going to say anything? She felt the fear inside of her tightening as the pale man passed the building, his eyes lingering on the building as he glanced up. She didn’t know what kind of powers these people had, but she knew that Victor was probably fully aware of it.
If she wanted answers, then she was going to have to go to Victor, something she wasn’t eager for. She rode the elevator up to the fourth floor and walked to her apartment and unlocked the door. She terrified Greta by coming home this early, but when she apologized, Greta laughed it off and told her how Blake was for the day.
She didn’t question that Shawna had come home early, but she knew there was something wrong with her. Shawna was going to have to stop acting so strange or she was going to need to find another babysitter. Greta wouldn’t tolerate this forever.
When Greta was out of the apartment, Shawna locked the door behind her.
She knew there were a lot of legends about vampires not being able to come inside of buildings they weren’t invited into and she really hoped this was the case for them in the real world. She didn’t know what kind of rules she was going to be forced to play by, but she was going to need to know them rather quickly if she want
ed to survive this. If they could break through the door, then she was going to need to have something to defend herself with.
Setting her messenger bag down on the dining room table, she grabbed a knife from the cutlery block and held onto it as she looked at the door, wondering if a vampire could die like a normal person. Victor had said he’d been alive for hundreds of years and she wasn’t sure if she believed that or if he was just trying to impress her. He sounded like he was American, so she wasn’t sure if she bought the ancient history thing.
It didn’t matter right now. All she cared about was protecting her son.
Walking over to Blake, she placed the knife on the small table next to his bouncer as he looked up at the trembling and swaying toys that were hanging over his head with a kind of angelic fascination that she wished she had in her life. She wished she could be so bemused by something as simple and wonderful as a bunch of swaying toys, but she was left with the terrifying reality that he was unaware of. She shook her head. What had she gotten herself into?
