In the afternoon, when the mountains above us start to shade us from the sun, I take Ivy out again. I show her again the three best routes away from the cabin that I’d identified going downhill. They run alongside small rises in the land, or large downed trees, to help keep out of sight. “We vampires can see extremely well at night – even better than you can see in daylight,” I tell her. “If we run into trouble, our best first option is to wait it out in the cabin until morning when they’re weakest. If we can’t, we do our best to stay hidden as we run to the road.”
I take her down one of the escape routes. Before we get close enough to be seen from the highway, I stop. I point out a tree stump near the road with a white boulder on either side of it.
“Right at the base of the stump is a loop of rope, nearly invisible unless you know it’s there. Pull up on the rope if you’re being chased,” I tell Ivy. “It’s the lid to a sealed chest. Inside, you’ll find flares and a pistol loaded with silver bullets. First thing, crack a flare – there’s a bright red pull cord, just yank it and drop the thing, preferably on the road. They’re magnesium so they burn bright white. Even in full daylight, it will hurt your eyes to look at it. There are some other compounds in them, too, that mimic the qualities of sunlight to some degree. It won’t weaken a vampire as much as actual daylight will, but it will help even things out a little bit, especially at night.”
“Then take the pistol and shoot at anything that moves?”
“The pistol is your last resort. Try to flag down a car while burning flares if you can. Get yourself away.”
Ivy looks around. At this time in the afternoon, there is a steady stream of traffic on this highway. Even at night, there is usually at least one car every few minutes on the road. It makes me nervous to be out by the road in full daylight.
“What are the chances it will come to that?” Ivy asks.
“Low,” I say.
Ivy gives me that look again, where she’s clearly trying to figure out if I’m lying to her.
“One of the problems with immortality, is that without the specter of death always hovering over your shoulder, you are very slow to change, and to learn, and to grow. You forget to adapt. It’s why I don’t always fit in easily when I try to blend with you. In many ways, I still look at the world the way I did a hundred years ago, I act as if people will respond the way they did, as if an action on my part will lead to the same reaction.”
“What does this have to do with whether or not I’m going to get into a gunfight on the highway?”
“Come with me,” I tell her, offering my hand. She takes it, and we start walking back up toward the cabin. “I was one of the best hunters. There is nothing any other hunter knows about finding a vampire that I don’t. I actually taught the one that was looking for your house yesterday. She’s hunting alone. When she discovers that you have fled, she’s going to assume I’ve most likely taken you far away from here. She will contact other hunters try to figure out where we’re running to, instead of searching this area in depth.”
“Is that why you had me tell Grandma to get out of town for a few days?”
“Yes. They might think we’re with her and send somebody out to check.”
“You had me tell her ‘Negre hunters’, as if that would mean something to her.”
“I don’t know exactly what or how much your grandmother knows about us,” I tell Ivy.
“She knows about a lot more than you might suspect, Ben.”
“I have figured that out. She knew the instant that we met that I was a vampire, though. If she could tell that, she probably knows about the bigger clans, at least. Anybody that knows that much knows about the Negre.”
“I guess that explains why she didn’t want me to have anything to do with you,” Ivy says.
“Yes. Relationships like ours are not easy. Her concerns are very well founded,” I have to admit to Ivy. “It’s a good thing she didn’t manage to push us apart, though. I guess we’re both lucky that you got stubborn with her.”
“I guess so,” Ivy says.
As we go up the slope, I see her examining the escape route we’re walking. She’s a very smart woman, very perceptive. I’m sure she’s figured out that I come out here occasionally and trim back some of the branches that cross the path, that I’ve cleared any stones or roots that could trip a person or turn an ankle. Her eyes constantly dart left and right, seeing what she can see, what would be able to see her.
“Is she in any danger?” Ivy asks.
“No. If they approach her, they’ll compel her to speak. They won’t need to torture her for information or otherwise harm her. It would just waste their time and not get them any closer to finding us.”
“Wouldn’t they try to use her to draw us out?”
“They would need a way to communicate to us that they have her,” I say. “For that, they’d need to find us, or she’d need to have a way of communicating with us. Neither of us has phones now.”
Ivy slowly nods her head.
“If I thought she would come to harm, I would have brought her with as well. I know that it would destroy you to lose her.”
“Thank you,” Ivy says, quietly. “I suppose this means that I can’t get any messages out to her, though, doesn’t it?”
“It does,” I say. “For now. When things cool down, we can get a message to her without giving ourselves away.”
Chapter Fifteen
Ivy Sparks
By the end of the second day at Ben’s cabin, I start to relax a little bit. Everything seems very well set up and prepared. If it is indeed true that he is as old as he says he is, I can trust in his experience to carry us through safely. Plus, I have a little more to me than he suspects yet, my secret that I have told nobody. In a way, that makes it easier for me to accept that he’d been hiding his true nature from me as long as he has. I have been deceiving him for just as long, and am still holding it from him. Grandma made sure to teach me about protection from vampires and werewolves as part of my lessons. There is obviously more that she hadn’t given me, like this bit about clans and hunters and some War that had happened. But I have some tools to keep me safe, especially now that I know what I’m dealing with. On the other hand, I can’t help but wonder why I never picked up that Ben is a vampire. Looking back on it, all of the signs were there. I guess knowing that vampires exist in the world is one thing. Finding they are walking the hallways of your school is something else entirely.
It is such a beautiful evening that I take my dinner out to the front porch to eat it. Since the sun is behind the mountains behind us, Ben is able to join me without discomfort. He leaves his hat, jacket, and dark glasses inside while he sits out with me, wearing just a pair of dark jeans and a t-shirt. It is really weird to see him dressed down so much, because I’d gotten used to him always dressing nicely, if a bit oddly, at school.
“I will be up all night,” he tells me. “Tomorrow, I will need to get some sleep during the day, but I will wait until you wake up.”
“How much sleep do you need?” I ask him.
“Honestly, just a few hours every other day or so, as long as I can avoid sunlight. If you will stand watch during the height of the day, which is when any other vampires are at their weakest, I can be up and active the rest of the time.”
The entire cabin has heavy blackout curtains on all of the windows. I also noticed that one of the two twin beds in the small bedroom has an extra curtain around it. I slept alone last night, while Ben was out. All day, I have found myself wondering if it would be possible to push the two beds together so I could sleep with him, but it sounds like he won’t be sleeping at the same times I am.
I don’t know yet whether that is a curse or a blessing. I certainly still desire him, a lot. If anything the danger and the way he is taking such good care of me has really heightened my feelings for him, not only emotionally, but physically. Him sitting next to me with his powerful arms bare is certainly doing something for me right now
.
At the same time, the danger and all of the stress and uncertainty have also left me conflicted about him. I feel that if he had never laid eyes on me, I would be having a perfectly normal day right now. I’d be sitting at home, doing my piano practice while Carl and Grandma pretend they’re not both drinking beer in the kitchen. I’d still have Carl in my life. The loss of my dearest and closest friend, really because of a fight about Ben, also leaves me a little cold toward him in my heart. Taken together, my feelings for him, bright hot and cold, leave me just warm for him.
It is at this moment that I remember a couple of other faces, of young men that I had not previously thought of in any sort of romantic way. Now, though… Now that I know what it is like to touch a man, feel him, have him touch me, kiss me, enter me… I’ve felt that before, I must have just not wanted to admit it…
I shake my head to clear those thoughts out. This is not how I thought I’d feel just a day after my first time with a guy, especially with a guy I went to full of love and true desire. I should be still floating through the air, wiggling and feeling a tiny ache inside of me every time I think of his body and his touch.
I finish my dinner and go inside to clean up. “No,” Ben says. “I’ll be up all night. I can take care of it.” Doing dishes has never been my favorite chore, so that’s about all the argument he needs to make. Besides, there’s no running water to the cabin. To do dishes, I’d have to heat up two basins full of water on the propane burner, one to wash, and one to rinse. That’s a lot more work than simply running the sink would be.
One thing I must say is that Ben was kind enough to stock the cabin with a good selection of books. We sit down and read, side by side in a couple of camp chairs while the sun goes down outside. He recommended ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ to me, as one of the books that could best explain what life was like for the men he fought in France back in 1918. He still hasn’t told me much about what it was really like in the war for him, but it seems very important to him that I understand what it was like for the soldiers on the other side. I can’t help but think it is his way of dealing with his guilt over what he’d done then, to make sure I know their story and that I remember them as actual living, breathing, loving people that got caught up in something much greater than themselves.
As the light outside fades, Ben closes all of the curtains in the cabin. There are two small lamps in the cabin, on little charging stations connected to solar panels on the roof. He hands me one and the first thing I do is shine it at him playfully. He smiles at me, but I can tell he’s confused.
“This was charged by sunlight,” I tell him, laughing a little bit. “So, I was wondering if it would repel you the same way.”
“No,” he says. “It’s only the direct sun that weakens me. The LEDs don’t have whatever it takes.”
I can tell he’s trying to get the joke. “Come on, Ben,” I say. “I know you wouldn’t have these lights inside the cabin if they would actually harm you.”
At that, some sign that I actually thought through what I was doing, I see him relax and enjoy my little bit of fun. When I get tired enough to sleep, I ask Ben if he will at least come to bed with me and hold me until I fall asleep.
“Of course,” he says. As he follows me to the bedroom, I think he understands what I am asking for.
The twin bed would be tragically too small for two in hot weather, but with a little chill in the air, I look forward to having his body up against mine under the covers. I strip down to my underwear, taking a quick glance at his face as I crawl into the bed. He doesn’t show any obvious disappointment that I don’t’ undress completely. He takes just his jeans off and joins me.
“Listen, my love,” Ben tells me. “I really hoped to be able to tell you the full truth about myself before we spent the night together. I wanted you to be able to choose to be with me, a vampire, completely of your own free will even knowing what I am. I will never forgive myself for withholding that information from you before I made love to you, and I’ve vowed to myself I will never, ever lie to you again. I make that vow to you, now, as well.”
“I want to believe you, Ben,” I say.
“That’s why I had initially wanted it to be prom night. It would have given me time to make sure you knew everything about me before we took that step together. The hunter closing in on you forced my hand.”
I roll over to face him. We did not bring a light into the bedroom, so it is almost completely dark in the room. Dark enough that I can barely make out a fuzzy silhouette of him. “Forced you to take my virginity?”
“Yes,” he says.
I’m suddenly furious at him, and am about to tear into him when he puts a finger to my lips.
“Give me just a minute to explain, please?”
“Make it good,” I say. Even though I have my own secrets, I would never claim that being a witch would force me to do anything with him.
“The moment I consummated our union, that I climaxed inside of you, I claimed you as mine. I placed a protection on you, a bond so strong that even the worst of us cannot violate it even if he wanted to. No other vampire may directly harm you now. No other vampire can feed on you or turn you. They cannot even physically touch you without my permission. What we did in that hotel room the other night was more than just me showing you in the purest way that I could how much I love and adore you. It will help keep you safe. As long as I am alive, no other vampire can harm your body, and I will not allow any to touch you.”
“Why am I hiding out with you then?” I ask Ben.
“Because I could not bear to be without you. To be separate from you while I hide away would drain all joy from my nights, would darken all of the stars in the sky. And there are ways to harm you that don’t require anyone to touch you.”
I can understand both of those reasons, especially the second. Grandma made sure I understood that our magic has rules, but there are ways to skirt around rules, or even to use rules that protect to constrain instead. I shiver a little bit. Ben takes the opportunity to pull me closer to him. I let him do so. “Are we going to be alright, Ben?” I ask.
“I told you, I was one of the best hunters. I’ll keep you safe.”
I can’t deny the confidence in his voice as he tells me that. I know that he knows it is true. That is what I’ll have to rely on. I let myself soften up a little more against his body.
I hear him open his mouth as if to speak several times. Finally, I say, “Spit it out, already.”
“Ok,” he says. “I promised to be truthful with you from here on. Something that you need to know.”
“Yes?”
“It was Carl that really saved your life.”
“How?” I ask.
“When he heard that I’d asked you to prom, he was furious. He came to me and we had some words. In the course of the conversation, I realized that he’d been near a vampire just a couple hours earlier. That’s when I knew that we couldn’t wait until prom.”
“Carl…” My dear, good Carl, who isn’t keeping secrets from me.
“Yes. He is a very good man, Ivy. I hope that once we are safely through this, perhaps we he and I can make a fresh start with each other.”
“Will we get safely through this,” I ask Ben.
He puts one of his hands on my chest, over my heart. Even though I can’t see him, I can tell he’s concentrating very hard on something. I wonder what, exactly.
“In most of the futures I can imagine, you are unharmed,” he says, finally.
“But not all of them?”
“The future is never certain. But I know what I’m doing, and you are bright and observant and careful. I think we’ll get through this together.”
I curl in closer to Ben. I try to hide my disappointment as he spoons against my back that he is not very warm. I think now of Nathan, who is always warm. Even hot to the touch a little, as if he’s constantly running a fever. I try to bring myself back to Ben, back to the man I am with now, to the choi
ce I’d made. “You certainly weren’t this cold two nights ago,” I say, because my thoughts of Nathan bring it so sharply to my mind just how little warmth I’m getting from Ben’s body. “I remember feeling the fire inside of you everywhere you touched me.” I take a breath, then ask, “Have you lost your desire for me?”
“No!” Ben says. “Not at all. Tonight, it just seems you’re not in the mood.”
“I don’t mean that,” I say. “Your lack of body heat. Do you I no longer light the fire in you?”
“Oh, Ivy,” he says. “You do now even more than you did before I first touched you. I am just very rarely warm. That’s what we call you, but the way. We call non-vampires ‘warm’, because you always are. We are almost always cold.”
“What was different about the other night? Was it lust or something?” I ask.
“I fed before I picked you up, so I would have some body heat.”
That seriously unsettles me. The thought that just a couple of hours before kissing my neck, he was biting somebody else’s, taking blood from them. This feels like such a huge betrayal! A few minutes ago, I was certain he loved me, but now I find I can’t help but recoil from his touch, my whole body stiffening. It is only after I’ve pulled away that I realize that I am in a cabin, alone in the woods with him. I’m the only one he’ll be able to feed on now.
“You’re going to turn me into a vampire out here, aren’t you?”
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