by Lumi Laura
CHAPTER 7 Catalin: "You'll be alright."
Once outside, Alex shouted into the night air, arms raised. "What's happening to me?" And then to herself, Am I a lesbian? Have I always been? Bisexual? Already, she regretted abandoning her two friends. She felt lonely. "Imagine! Me, lonely."
She roamed the main street through Sinaia watching people and tried to come to terms with herself. She had a feeling she was being followed. She turned to look behind several times, but at first could see no one suspicious. It was as if she had a new sixth sense. Then she saw him. A strange man in a cloak or robe. Or was it an animal? What was not right about him, she couldn't quite determine. Yet, she sensed something scary, and it wasn't just that his clothes were a couple hundred years out of fashion. She decided she'd experienced enough nightlife.
She'd been avoiding returning to the gazebo where Catalin had asked her to meet him, but now she realized she had to. That bite on the neck had done something. And that woman, Velinar, had actually fed on her, sucked her blood. The reality and seriousness of it finally hit home.
Once back at her grandmother's, Alex entered by the front door, walked straight through the living room, and exited out the backdoor as she had the night she chased Nălucă into the woods. Tonight, it was much darker, the moon not up yet, and she almost turned back to get a flashlight, but noticed that her night vision had adjusted quickly.
She was disappointed to see that the gazebo was not there, and wondered if she'd dreamed the entire episode. She started to turn back again but knew she had to find out what was happening to her. Catalin had said that he could help. She then noticed a small green shoot at the very spot where she'd shoved the small seed into the ground. She bent to touch it. Remarkable, she thought.
She waited at the ruins, where she last saw Catalin, and called. Standing alone in the dark, she was afraid she would run into Velinar again. Just as she was about to leave, someone came walking out of the darkness. She jumped, but then saw that it was Catalin.
"I'd been waiting and had given up," he said.
"Where's the gazebo? The dark is frightening."
"The apparition was Velinar's doing. I don't have the strength she can muster even when close to death. I can't constellate the gazebo. All I can generate is the faint glow of my presence."
"I've started changing. I want to know what that woman did to me. Who is she?"
Catalin hesitated, as if sifting what he could tell her from what he shouldn't. "Velinareina, Velinar we call her, is still very ill."
That response made Alex angry. "Do I now have some terminal affliction?"
Catalin shook his head no. "She is in fact a divine being. She had come to Earth, taken on mortal form, to accomplish a task, but while here, a vampire bit her. As an immortal, she needed the blood of a mortal to regain the strength to return."
"What are you talking about? A divine being? Get serious."
"I'm just an apparition myself. Try to touch me, if you don't believe me."
Alex did more than that. She tried to slap him, and then tried to hit him in the chest with her fist. But her hand and fist just passed through him.
"You don't have to be so belligerent," he said. "I'm not your enemy."
"But you let that creature attack me."
"Yes. And unfortunately, in biting you, she has in fact infected you."
"So I'm now a vampire, and that's why I've been acting and feeling strange?"
"No. Well... yes. But it isn't a normal vampire infection. Obviously, you'll take on some shades of vampirism, but they should not be serious, and they will pass. You didn't suck her blood."
"If what I'm now experiencing is only a shade, the full monty must be something to talk about."
"Monty? Not familiar with that."
"No flicks where you come from?" He was even more hopeless than she. "Full experience."
"Yes, I'm afraid it is. But you could never become one from being bitten by Velinar."
"Is Velinar some sort of disgusting daemon?"
"No," said Catalin. "She was here on a mission. She got bit by a vampire, and became sort of a vampire herself."
"Sort of a vampire? Can't you do better than that?"
"Well, yes, a vampire. She was then trapped here on Earth. She was too weak to cast off the mortal form and leave behind the earthly vampire she'd become. She had to feed to get the physical strength to become divine again. Even in divine form, a remnant of what happened to her will remain, the taint of vampirism, but at least she got back to Heaven, thanks to you. But she can never again take on mortal form."
"Who bit her?" Alex had gone into interrogation mode as she'd frequently seen her mother.
"I don't know that I should get into that. She'd resigned herself to die here on Earth, her soul forever condemned to the Great Void. You came along when she was on the verge of death and an emotional wreck. She feels bad about what she did, but she found you irresistible. She sent me to tell you this. She wishes she could have come herself. It would have been the right thing to do."
This guy is really good at sidestepping a question, she thought. She wondered if he was a lawyer in the Divine World. "How can I trust you about this? Who are you?"
At first, Catalin didn't seem to know how to answer, or perhaps his integrity had never been questioned. "I was her guardian while she was here," he said, finally. "I failed to protect her. I knew she'd come to Earth but didn't know the full extent of her mission. I would have never let her attempt such a dangerous task. She is the Great Velinar, one of the most magnificent divine souls, a wondrous being and the sweetest entity I've ever known. Now she has been forever crippled."
Sidestepping again. This guy was incorrigible. "She's great, sweet, but she made me a vampire."
"Stop that! I told you. You are not a vampire and neither is she, now, thanks to you. Since she is in her very essence an immortal, you will not become a vampire. You will take on some of the characteristics for a while, but will not become one." He halted and became unsure of himself.
"So my situation is temporary?"
"There is one way you could become a vampire, and only one. But this possibility, if I can even call it that, is so remote that I hate to mention it."
"Indulge me."
Catalin looked away, slumped in irritation, then turned back to her. "If you ever, yourself, kill someone by drinking their blood, then you will become a vampire. But that is not something you have to worry about because you won't have the craving."
"This still isn't right," she said. "This should not have happened to me. I've done nothing wrong."
"I realize that. Yet, it is what it is. I will help all I can. But I can't always be here for you either. You have to understand. Coming here is incredibly difficult and immensely dangerous. I can't take on corporeal form as did Velinar. Even an apparition is a stretch for me. I will meet with you once more, if you should need me. But use me sparingly. My ability to take on even this limited, visual form has already weakened me."
Before Alex could let him go, she had another question. "Why did you call me Marie? Last night, when you first saw me."
"I'm a caretaker of this entire region of Earth, the Carpathian Mountains. I've been doing this since the mountains formed. I'm not the caretaker of the people but the mountains themselves, its wildlife and foliage. All that nature provides. I watched Queen Marie throughout her life. She was one of my favorite mortals. It was a shock to see someone who favors her so."
"I'm a descendent of hers, at least that's what my grandmother told me."
"That would explain it. But you're not one of the royalty?"
"No. I'm descended from a string of illegitimate royal children."
"Really? This might change things. You may have a destiny. I'll have to check into this. We should meet again. It will be the last time."
"You're beginning to sound like my grandmother. I'm not interested in a destiny. I'm concerned about how I've changed since Velinar bit me. It's disgusting. I think I'm bisexual. I
'm horny as hell."
Catalin roared with laughter. "Don't worry. You'll be fine. "
"Seriously! I'm ill-equipped to handle these feelings. I've not been wondering about sex since I was five like most girls. This is an internal world I've never experienced. I don't recognize myself."
"Be patient. You'll recover. You'll be fine."
"I'll be fine? I'm already not fine."
"That's not vampirism but a property of the divine." He shook his head and smiled broadly. "I suppose you picked up a little of that from Velinar also. In the Divine World, we're all bisexual, or at least have a semblance of it. We take more liberties. Go easy on yourself," he said, still lighthearted. "It may take a while, but it'll wear off. Stay home. Being out at night makes it worse."
He walked away from her and disappeared into the darkness.
