by G. K. DeRosa
“You did what?” yelled Stellan over the speakerphone. Stellan, normally so calm and collected, shouted as though he might come through the phone and strangle Roman with his bare hands.
“How could you tell her about the supernatural world? What were you two thinking?”
“There was no other choice, Stellan. How were we going to explain Patrick’s attempt to abduct her? And if this is her destiny, what is the point of lying to her? She is going to have to learn about it all soon enough. I thought maybe if it came from us, she would handle it better. I was obviously mistaken,” said Roman.
“Roman, it wasn’t your place to tell her. Guardians are chosen at the age of eighteen, and when they are, the truth is revealed to them in the appropriate manner,” continued Stellan.
“But she doesn’t have her father,” insisted Roman, “so who will teach her and guide her in the ways of a hunter?”
Nico could see that this conversation was going nowhere and interjected, “Stellan, what is done is done, we cannot take back what we told her. What’s important now is to try to find out who sent Patrick, and if more will be coming for Celeste.”
Stellan exhaled and tried to calm himself, and Roman stopped pacing like a caged animal.
“I’ve been doing some research since you boys paid me a visit, and it seems as though there has been a large amount of dark magic in use in the area,” said Stellan. “I can’t be sure of the exact location or source, but there is something in the air that has the supernatural community in a commotion.”
“What does that mean exactly?” asked Nico.
“I’m not sure yet. Sometimes when a new guardian is chosen, it disturbs the balance between good and evil. An oversimplified explanation would be that evil could be trying to compensate for it,” explained Stellan.
“And could Fabian be the cause of this?” asked Roman.
“It is certainly possible.”
“So what do we do now?” asked Nico.
“I have contacted a few of my more powerful and well-connected friends to see if they can give us more information. Until then we have to wait. If Fabian did send Patrick to find Celeste, and he knows who she is, I’m afraid that we will all be in serious peril.”
Celeste awoke the next morning to a rough slobbery tongue on her face. “Hi Rocky,” she said with a smile. As she wiped the drool off her face, images from last night came rushing back. She was absolutely positive that everything had been a bad dream. Sluggishly, she pushed the covers aside and slipped her aching feet into her fuzzy slippers. Strewn on the floor was her beautiful prom dress. She picked it up for closer examination only to find bloodstains and frayed material all along the back from her fall on the rough asphalt. The dress was ruined.
How could this be happening? Nico and Roman are vampires. They drink blood and kill people?
Celeste rubbed her throbbing head. This was too much for her to wrap her head around without at least a cup of coffee. She went downstairs and was surprised to find her mother in the kitchen reading the paper in her pink scrubs.
“Good morning sweetie!” she said cheerily. “How was your night?”
Celeste attempted to plaster a convincing smile on her face. “It was awesome mom! We had a great time, danced, took lots of pictures, and made tons of memories…”
She went on to tell her mother about the highlights of the evening, making sure to leave out her near abduction and the fact that her new friends were vampires (or maybe that she was just going crazy). She suddenly remembered the dream she had about her father while she was unconscious, and felt that this was a bit of truth that she could share with her mother.
“I dreamt about Dad last night,” she began, “and it was pretty strange, but it seemed so real.”
Mrs. Wilder put down the paper and looked at her expectantly. “Tell me about it, Celeste, I know how rarely you ever dream of him.”
Celeste poured herself a big mug of coffee, filled it with sugar and cream and sat down at the table. “It was so great to see him, but what he said, it was all so strange. He told me that I had to learn to be a hunter, to protect humans against bad things. He said that I had been called for a greater purpose to be a force of good against evil in the world. He told me that all the scary monsters we thought were imaginary are actually real.” Celeste hadn’t taken a breath, but when she finished she looked up to gauge her mom’s expression.
Instead of the comforting look Celeste expected, her mother had gone completely pale. She tried to compose herself, but it was too late; Celeste had already seen her reaction.
“What is it Mom?” she asked.
“Oh nothing, don’t mind me, I have other things on my mind. I’m sorry sweetie, but I have to get to work,” she said, looking at her watch. “It’s getting late and I have so many patients to see.” She stood up abruptly leaving her unfinished breakfast and darted out the door.
Celeste was perplexed at her mother’s strange reaction to the dream. She had never seen her look so upset, not for a very long time anyway. Celeste looked longingly at the picture of her and her parents on the nightstand. She wished that her father were here right now. She needed to talk to him about all of the crazy things that had been going on in her life for the past few weeks. He would know exactly what to say to comfort her. Instead, she felt more alone than ever.
Celeste’s buzzing phone interrupted her thoughts, and she saw Nico was calling again. This was the fourth time this morning, but she wasn’t ready to talk to him yet. She still hadn’t been able to accept the notion that he and Roman were vampires, and she couldn’t help but wonder how the dream about her father might tie into all of this. What she did know was that it was all too much of a coincidence for it not to. Roman’s story did mention his mother being a witch and some terrible sorcerer cursing their family, but did that mean that everything she had dreamt was true? She didn’t want to believe that all of those horrible monsters she saw in her nightmare could actually be real.
As Celeste sat on her bed questioning reality as she knew it, she heard a knock at the door followed by a menacing bark from Rocky. She hurried down the stairs and could just make out a tall shadow at the door. She peeked through the window and was surprised to see Roman pacing on her front porch. A chill went through her at the sight of him.
“Come on Celeste, please open the door. I know you’re there, I can hear you breathing,” he said from outside.
Celeste unlocked the door and opened it a crack. “What do you want Roman?”
“We need to talk. Please let me in. Or if you don’t trust me, you can come out here and we can talk out on the porch where you will be perfectly safe,” he said with a scowl.
Celeste thought about it for a moment and reasoned that she had been alone with both Roman and Nico on a couple of occasions, and they had never hurt her before. Also she wanted to make sure that Brian didn’t see the two of them talking and decide to come over. It was important to protect Brian, and she didn’t want him to have anything to do with this. She opened the door all the way and signaled for Roman to enter, but he just stood there unmoving.
“You have to invite me in,” he said.
“Seriously? I thought that was just in the movies,” she said, suppressing a chuckle.
“No, it’s a real thing, and a very important thing at that. You must always be careful about who you invite into your house, Celeste.”
“Once you let a vampire in, can you take back the invitation?” she asked intrigued.
“No, unfortunately not.”
“Well then, I’m going to have to think about this.”
Roman tapped his foot on the floor impatiently while Celeste considered. He looked so good, she wondered if it was a vampire thing. His black hair was a bit disheveled, but in a sexy way and his strong jaw had a trace of stubble on it. She could almost imagine what it would feel like against her skin. Stop that!
“Okay, I invite you in, I guess,” she said finally.
As if an invisible
barrier had been removed, Roman gracefully crossed the threshold. Celeste led him into the sunlit living room and sat across from him, cautiously keeping her distance.
“I thought vampires couldn’t come out in the day time,” she said.
“I imagine you must have a lot of questions for me,” Roman responded, “but first I want to apologize about how my brother and I handled everything last night. I never should have told you about us. It really would have been better if I hadn’t.”
“And what, you two would have just kept lying to me?” Celeste asked.
“Yes, because it would have been safer for you that way.”
“Safer? That’s doubtful since Patrick came after me even when I didn’t know anything about you,” she retorted. Then she paused for a second realization setting in, “Is that why he came after me? Because of you?”
With a pained expression on his face, he admitted, “We don’t know, but we are trying to find out. We have a friend, Stellan, who is a sorcerer, a good one, and he’s helping us.”
“Okay, should I be worried or something?” asked Celeste.
“No, don’t be. Nico and I will take care of everything. We will watch over you and protect you. If Patrick did come after you because of us, I promise I won’t stop until I find the person behind this,” he said.
“And kill them?”
“If that’s what needs to be done to keep you safe, then yes, unquestionably.”
There was something about the intensity in Roman’s voice that sent another chill down her spine. The fact that he would go through such lengths to protect her filled her with nervous excitement.
“You think there is someone else behind this? Like someone sent Patrick for me? I just don’t understand why anyone would come after me,” she said.
Hesitantly, Roman reached across the table and covered her hand with his giving it a gentle squeeze. He whispered, “Everything is going to be fine, Celeste. I won’t let anyone hurt you.”
Celeste’s phone buzzed again. She glanced at it and said, “It’s Nico. He’s been calling me all morning.”
“My little brother is certainly persistent, I’ll give him that,” he said teasingly.
Celeste finally answered the phone and assured Nico that she was fine. She was surprised that he had no idea that Roman was with her. After a quick chat, she turned back to Roman who was sitting pensively on the couch.
“So a vampire, huh?” she asked.
“For over a hundred years now,” he replied. “And the reason that sunlight does not affect me is that I did not become a vampire in the normal way.”
“Oh, right the normal way…” Celeste mused.
“What I mean is … weren’t you listening to the story?” He looked flustered. “Fabian turned us through a spell, so a lot of the rules that constrain other vampires don’t apply to us. Walking in the sun just happens to be one of them.”
“But you still drink people’s blood?” she asked awkwardly.
“I do, but not from humans directly,” he explained. “My brother and I are able to maintain a healthy diet of blood, mostly from donor banks and hospitals.”
Celeste took a deep breath and said, “Tell me more about your life, about when you first became a vampire.”
“It was very difficult at first. All of the impulses, the surge of power, it was very overwhelming. I’ve tried very hard to forget that time in my life,” he said grimacing.
“I’m sorry. It’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it.”
“It wasn’t all bad. As we grew to accept our new lives, I remember a time when we were actually happy. Nico and I were eternal twenty-year-olds, and we spent decades attending universities around the globe. Because of the spell, we weren’t condemned to living in the shadows like other vampires are. We were able to walk freely in the sun, so we could assimilate fairly well into the human world, for short periods of time anyway. This was especially true for Nico, as he always seemed right at home wherever he went. He was charmingly relentless with the ladies, popular with the guys and seemed to fit into the human world much more easily than I ever did.”
He paused with a sigh and ran his hand through his wavy hair.
“But inevitably every four or five years we were forced to move on, and leave whatever life we had created to conjure up a whole new one, in a new town, with new people. That was what brought us to Oak Bluffs for the first time in the early 1950’s. And it was here that our parents were killed.”
This time it was Celeste who leaned across the table and gave Roman a comforting touch. “Why would you come back here then?”
Roman chuckled. “I keep asking myself the same question.”
Roman and Celeste spent the rest of the morning playing a series of twenty questions. She found herself fascinated by all of his intriguing adventures filled with magic, world travel and encounters with werewolves and monsters, and she began to feel less afraid. She found it incredibly odd how comfortable she now felt around him, thinking I am sitting with a vampire on my couch in the living room and I am not freaked out.
“Celeste,” Roman interjected seriously, “I don’t want to mislead you about my life as a vampire. There have been some very dark times as well. I’ve been able to move past it, but I am constantly battling my basic instinct. Nico and I, we manage pretty well, but the others, they are not like us. Now that you know about our existence, you have to be careful.”
“I will be. I promise, no more picking up cute guys at Ralph’s,” she said with a smirk.
“Oh, so you thought Patrick was cute?”
“No, not really. I prefer my guys a little older,” she said flirtatiously.
“It’s after one o’clock—you must be hungry,” Roman said by way of changing the subject. “Would you like to go out for lunch?”
“Do you even need to eat?” she asked.
“No, I don’t, but after all of these years of trying to live a human life, I’ve become quite accustomed to adhering to social norms.”
“Then sure, I am pretty hungry. Now that I think about it, I didn’t even get to eat at my senior prom last night with all the distractions.”
“I’m sorry about that,” he said. “I am truly sorry that I ruined your prom.”
“It’s okay, I really wasn’t that excited about it in the first place. And I guess since you did save my life, we can call it even.”
Roman opened the car door for Celeste, and as she buckled herself into the sporty bucket seat she noticed blood on the headrest. A wave of fear came over her, but she steadied herself and asked as calmly as she could, “Is this blood?”
“Yes, it is. It’s your blood actually,” he said very matter-of-factly.
Celeste instinctively reached for the back of her head searching for the spot where she hit it when she fell on the road.
“What happened when I fell? Why don’t I have a cut or even a bump?” she asked. “My dress has blood all over it.”
“It’s another one of our vampire perks I guess you could say,” he began. “Our blood can heal humans. When you passed out, we were worried you might have a concussion, so I fed you some of my blood and it healed you.”
“I drank your blood?” she asked with a nauseated expression.
“You loved it.”
She elbowed him teasingly, and he pretended to wince in pain.
“So I know this is probably a stupid question, but am I going to turn into a vampire now?”
Roman laughed and said, “No, it’s not that easy.”
“Then how?”
“Well for starters you have to be bitten and drained of your blood, and then when you are almost at the point of death you have to drink a large amount of vampire blood. Then you would die, and when you awoke you would no longer be human.”
Celeste was so engrossed in the conversation that she hadn’t realized they had just pulled up to Ralph’s Diner. As they walked in, she saw Natalie waving happily from a booth in the corner. She signaled for them to come
over, and as they approached she saw a familiar sandy-brown head turn around.
“Hi you two!” said Natalie cheerily.
Then Brian chimed in, “Why don’t you guys come sit with us?”
“I don’t believe we’ve officially met,” said Roman politely. “I’m Roman, Nico’s brother. You must be Brian.”
“Yeah, hey,” he said.
Celeste slid into the booth next to Brian and Roman sat across from her next to Natalie. Celeste wondered if they were intruding on a date and tried to communicate with Natalie via facial expressions, but Natalie just looked utterly confused.
“So what are you two doing here together?” Natalie asked.
Celeste’s expression blanked as she searched for an explanation.
“Celeste forgot her feathered boa at our apartment last night, and Nico was hung-over so I offered to bring it to her,” said Roman smoothly.
“And I was hungry so I convinced him to take me to lunch,” Celeste finished.
“So what were you doing at our prom last night, Roman?” asked Brian rather abruptly.
Celeste looked at Roman anxiously, but he easily replied, “I was asked to be a chaperone actually. I am a member of the St. Alice High School Board, and when I found out my little brother was going to the dance, I decided to go so that I could keep an eye on him.”
“And dance with his date?” questioned Brian, a hint of jealousy in his tone.
Celeste nudged Brian with her elbow under the table and gave him a sharp look. She didn’t think that Brian had seen them dancing; at the time he and Natalie were being crowned Prom King and Queen.
“I asked him to dance with me,” interjected Celeste. “He was standing by himself, looking bored, so I dragged him out on the dance floor.”
Natalie broke in and started chattering about how much fun the night had been and how honored she was to be chosen Prom Queen. Anything to change the subject.
After lunch, the four of them walked out together. Natalie grabbed Celeste by the arm so they were a couple steps behind the boys, and whispered conspiratorially, “So which brother are you dating?”
