Biting the Bride

by Clare Willis

  The teenager came around the counter and deposited the cappuccino in front of Sunni. It had a twist of lemon and an almond biscotti cookie on the saucer. As her mouth watered, Sunni realized she couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten anything. Despite the beautiful food at Isabel and Richard’s reception she’d been too upset to eat a single bite. She dipped the biscotti in the coffee and let the crumbly cookie dissolve on her tongue.

  Scipio sighed. “All right, yes, we took him. Jacob Eddington is currently incarcerated.”

  “Where is he? ”

  “That is not for you to know, I’m afraid.”

  “Is he hurt?”

  The gray-haired vampire shook his head.

  “When will you let him out?”

  “Not for a long time, I’m afraid.” Scipio gazed out the window. Sunni followed his eyes, seeing only the usual crowds hurrying along the sidewalk. “He has broken some of our most fundamental laws.”

  “You mean about me, right? Because he trained me?”

  “Yes, that’s correct.”

  Sunni looked at Enzo, her eyes blazing, and was rewarded when Enzo’s smug expression changed to a fearful one. So Enzo’s boss didn’t know he’d been with Sunni and Jacob at Fort Point, that for a while, at least, he’d participated in Sunni’s training. Before he’d decided to kill her, anyway. Sunni opened her mouth to say something and then realized that if both Enzo and Jacob were alive, then this handsome young vampire must have been somehow complicit in Jacob’s plans. She let her mouth drift closed and Enzo breathed a tiny sigh of relief.

  “Why do you have such laws? They’re ridiculous, don’t you see?”

  Scipio looked at her in confusion.

  “You all seem to pride yourselves on having such a civilized society, bound by honor and morals and so on. And yet dhampirs are part of your community, aren’t they? Just as much as someone who’s half Asian and half Caucasian, for example, is part of this society? ”

  Scipio toyed with his espresso cup. “Yes, but unlike your example, dhampirs are illegal in our society. ”

  “That’s like miscegenation in America, when it was illegal for people of different races to marry. So in that case making half-breed humans was illegal. It’s so backward, Scipio, don’t you see that?”

  Scipio was silent.

  Sunni put both hands on the table and leaned closer to the two vampires. “What are you all really afraid of?”

  Enzo chewed his lovely lower lip, staring at the table. Finally he looked up. “Dhampirs are more powerful than we are, in some ways.”

  “Enzo, be quiet,” Scipio hissed.

  The younger vampire shook his head. “It’s not illegal to tell her the truth, mio amico.” He turned back to Sunni. “We are afraid that if too many dhampirs are made they might band together and destroy us.”

  “They will only destroy you if they feel they have no other choice. If you make them part of society, welcome them in, they will have no reason to hate you.” She paused and looked down at the table. “We will have no reason to hate you.”

  The soprano on the café’s stereo system hit a glass-shattering high note and held it for an amazingly long time. Scipio waited until the note had died away before he nodded slowly. “I see your point, young lady.”

  “How are dhampirs made, anyway?” Sunni asked. She blushed then, and rephrased her question. “I mean, can any vampire and any human make a dhampir?”

  Scipio shook his head. “Any human can be made into a vampire, by sucking their blood to the point of death and introducing vampire blood into their system. This is the equivalent of injecting a virus into the human. But for a vampire and human to create a dhampir by sexual union, the human must have a specific gene, otherwise the sperm will not implant in the egg. The gene, as I understand from our scientists, is quite rare.”

  “So this fear you have that we are going to overrun you is baseless, right?”

  Scipio and Enzo looked at each other, and then back to Sunni. Neither of them seemed to know what to say.

  Sunni drank her cappuccino in one gulp. It warmed her throat on the way down. “But let’s get back to why I’m here. How can I get Jacob back?”

  Scipio pushed his chair back and stood up. He seemed finally tired of listening to Sunni’s rant. “You can’t.” He turned to Enzo. “Pay the bill. I’ll be in the car.”

  Enzo watched his boss leave and then pulled out his wallet and began counting bills. Sunni put her hand on his arm. “Will you help me, Enzo?”

  He pulled his arm away, shaking his head roughly. “I’ve already done too much.”

  “You have the wrong person, don’t you see?” Two old men at a nearby table turned to stare at her and she realized she was shouting. She lowered her voice. “Richard Lazarus is the one who should be in jail, not Jacob. Richard killed my foster father, for God’s sake. He’s probably going to kill my best friend.”

  Enzo’s face sagged. “I am sorry, bella dona. But killing humans is not illegal. What he has done is ill advised, but not illegal.” He touched her cheek lightly. “You are very strong, Sunni. If you can kill Richard, we would all be grateful, I assure you.”

  His finger traced the line of her chin. Although Sunni tried to ignore it she felt a fluttering in her stomach. Damn these vampires and their sex appeal, she thought, as she stepped away.

  “Grateful enough to let Jacob go?”

  “That is not for me to say, but I have lived long enough to know that the future contains infinite possibilities.”

  Sunni snorted. “Thanks. Philosophy is just what I need right now.”

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  The twenty-four hours was up and Richard was sitting in her living room. Sunni tested the knives in her kitchen, sliding the blades across her fingertips until they were crisscrossed with ribbons of blood. None of them seemed sharp enough, nor did she know whether they would even be efficacious against a vampire, since she had pushed Jacob away before they’d gotten to the weapons portion of her training.

  She had spent the rest of the time fruitlessly searching for Jacob, Sherman, and Delia. She searched Jacob’s apartment again, and wandered the area around Fort Point looking for clues. She’d Googled “vampires in San Francisco” and telephoned some of the people she discovered on the Web, only to find that they were clueless wannabes who had no idea what a real vampire was. She’d visited Sherman and Delia’s apartment both at night and during the day, always finding it dark and locked. At the Golden Dragon she’d found nothing but disappointed customers milling around on the sidewalk, amazed that a restaurant that had been open seven days a week since 1927 was taking a vacation. There was nothing else she could do but trust that the vampire lore about dhampirs was true, and that she had enough power to kill Richard herself. Sunni poured herself a glass of wine and went back into the living room without a weapon.

  Richard looked as relaxed as ever, legs crossed, one arm tossed over the back of the couch. He was dressed in one of his usual tweed suits, but instead of a vest and tie, he wore a cashmere sweater and an open-collared shirt. He stood when she entered the room, giving her a formal little bow before sitting down again.

  She took a big gulp of wine and then placed it on a side table. Now that he was here she had no idea what to do. The only example she had was from television shows, where vampire hunters suddenly start kung fu chopping their enemies, breaking windows and destroying every stick of furniture in the process.

  “Are you ready? “ the vampire asked. “Have you packed your bags?”

  “Yes, I’m ready. But not to go with you,” Sunni replied. She put down the glass and squeezed her hands into fists, trying to bring on the change that she had felt on the bridge, the rush of adrenaline that would give her the power she needed, but felt nothing but panic.

  He peered at her suspiciously. “What are you doing?”

  Sunni launched herself at him. In the second that she was aloft Sunni felt the change, so when Richard moved toward her she was ready. She
could see every molecule of Richard’s being. Time slowed so that she could prepare for the impact of their bodies in the air. As he met her she grabbed his lapels, holding him inches from her as they both hit the ground.

  He grabbed her hair and smashed her head against the floor. Blood welled up in her mouth from her bitten tongue, but she felt no pain. She freed one leg and kicked him in the stomach, knocking him off her and to the side. She leaped up and grabbed a lamp, intending to crush his skull with it, but while her arms were raised he tackled her. She fell again, this time into the glass coffee table. It shattered against her back and she fell into a curtain of razor-sharp shards. She tried to sit up but he was already on her, grinding her back and head into the glass. This time she felt pain, a great deal of it.

  “I’m very disappointed in you,” Richard grunted, his face against her neck. “You are not living up to your potential, not at all. I’m afraid I shall have to kill you now. ”

  She closed her eyes, trying to find her way back to her place of power, when she felt his jaw clamp onto her neck with the force of a hammer blow. She felt both fangs as they descended, sharp as needles. She screamed and thrashed, but she was pinned to the floor. Her blood rushed traitorously through her veins, offering itself to Richard, strengthening her enemy as it simultaneously weakened her. What came to her mind then, as her heartbeat faltered and her life began to ebb, was Jacob. A simple, unbearable thought, that they would never repair the rift that existed between them. It couldn’t end like that. She had to live. They had to see each other again, at least once, to make things right.

  Jacob lay on the dirt floor of his cell, one floor below the Council chamber and two floors below the Palace of Fine Arts. The only sounds were his breath, and the steady dripping of water from the pond far above him. There was no source of light. Jacob could have seen if he wanted to, but he had already ascertained that there was no way out. The bars were reinforced titanium, far too strong for one vampire to break. He could dig, but he was two stories underground. Whatever was going to happen between Sunni and Richard would be long done by the time his mole act could be completed.

  He had already lost track of time. Many years ago, during the War, he had been imprisoned by the British, and he’d kept a rough track of the days by the length of his beard and fingernails. Unfortunately he no longer had those quotidian markers to go by. So he lay on his back and drifted, waiting for someone to come by and check on him, so that he could at least attempt to overpower them and escape. But no one had come since Enzo and Patrick had locked him in with murmured apologies.

  Jacob heard a sound in the darkness, and it jerked him from the floor like a fish on a hook. Or perhaps he sensed it on some level that even he had never experienced before, because he knew this sound was too far away even for a vampire to hear it in the normal way. It was the sound of Sunni screaming.

  His fangs dropped, his legs and arms tensed, every nerve stood at attention. Everything in the black room became as bright as midday. With a strangled cry he threw himself against the bars, pulling at them with a strength that he had never felt before. The metal creaked, groaned, and gave way. He squeezed out through the small space and raced down the dark tunnel, doubled over to avoid hitting his head on the low ceiling. He burst into the antechamber of the jail and ran for the door that he knew led to the surface, but by then the alarm had been sounded.

  Enzo, Patrick, and three other vampire guards were on him, pulling him to the ground, one man on each of his limbs and Enzo holding his head. He was desperate; he was enraged. His mind was empty but for the single imperative of getting to Sunni. He sunk his fangs into Enzo’s neck and ripped through the flesh, half severing his friend’s head. Then he turned back to finish the job, but the other vampires had already dragged him away. They tossed him into a nearby cell, where he lay on the ground, his energy entirely exhausted, knowing he wouldn’t be able to break out again.

  Just beyond the bars he could see his friend, surrounded by the other vampires. Enzo’s breath came in slow, ragged gasps. He turned to the side and gazed at Jacob with no rancor, just infinite sadness. Jacob rammed his forehead into the ground and stayed there, the cold earth scraping his skin. He wished more fervently for death now than he ever had, even when he was standing outside the house containing his wife and children and knowing he could never enter it again. He felt wetness on his face. When he touched his cheek his hand came away red, stained with his own blood tears.

  Chapter 22

  The vampire was distracted by her blood. She could feel a laxity developing in his limbs as he siphoned the life force out of her veins. If she had been human she would already have been unconscious by this point, there would be no need for Richard to remain vigilant this long. But she wasn’t human, she told herself. Richard was underestimating her. She had powers that every vampire she’d met was afraid of—to one degree or another—she just needed to harness them.

  But Sunni was also distracted. The pain from her lacerated back, her contused head, and the wounds in her neck, compounded by the blood loss, were all serving to turn her into a quivering lump of jelly rather than the killing machine she needed to be. There were only seconds left before she died, she understood this on some deep cellular level. She had to find her focus. She concentrated on Richard, testing every point of connection between them, trying to find the weakest link. His grip on her head was the tightest; his neck was like a bar of iron pressing her to the ground. His legs were likewise unmovable, trapping her own legs underneath them. His right hand held her arm fast, but there was some looseness in the grip of his left hand.

  That was all she needed, one tiny weakness. She concentrated all her strength into her left arm and pulled it out of his grasp. She felt for his face, and then shoved her fingers deep into his eye socket. She felt something soft but resistant pop under her fingertips, like puncturing a sheet of Saran Wrap covering a bowl of Jell-O.

  Richard let out a loud, inarticulate shout of pain and pulled away, covering his face with his hands. She knocked him over and slid out from under his body. She backed far enough away that he couldn’t grab her legs and then she dared to look. He was still clutching his face, but she knew a vampire as powerful as he would recover enough within seconds to reach for her again. She considered attacking him while he was down, but her vision was blurred and her limbs were shaking violently. She was so weak she could barely stay upright. So she made the decision to leave him there and run for the door.

  She took the fire escape stairwell, stumbling and almost pitching headlong several times, yet moving at a pace that no human could match. Richard entered the stairwell when she was several floors down, his footfalls echoing in the empty space. She doubled her efforts, taking the stairs a flight at a time, until she was out on the sidewalk. Dodging the cars and buses as she darted across Fifth Street, she hoped she was moving fast enough that no one would see her wild hair and blood-soaked clothes. She wished she could cloak herself, but she would have to stop and concentrate to do that and it wouldn’t help hide her from Richard. She didn’t dare turn around and look for her pursuer, because it would waste precious seconds.

  She ran three blocks down to Market Street, and then turned right. She was in a tiny alley, too narrow for cars, redolent of piss and garbage. It came to a dead end in front of a set of padlocked iron doors with an overfull Dumpster in front of them. She crouched next to the Dumpster and waited. At least she’d see him first if he came this far.

  Interminable minutes clicked by but the alley remained empty. Sunni tried to stay alert, to think about what to do next, but every time she blinked, her eyes stayed closed for a second longer than the last time. Her shirt was soaked with sticky, copper-scented blood. Her head had become unbearably heavy, and her chin bobbed against her chest.

  “It’ll be okay.” She pushed the garbage bin forward a few inches and lay down on the slimy sidewalk behind it, cushioning her head with her arm.

  “Just need to rest a few minutes,”
she mumbled.

  The garbage bin and the sidewalk faded away. She was lying in a field of soft spring grass, the sun shining overhead, and a soft breeze rustling her hair. The scent of Jacob was all around, and when she looked up he was leaning over her, stroking her cheek. The sun glowed like a halo behind his head, and his blue eyes sparkled. He leaned close and kissed her, his lips as soft as velvet. His arms encircled her in a warm embrace as he lifted her to her feet.

  She looked down and saw that she was dressed in a simple white dress, the fabric so light and airy that it floated on the breeze like milkweed, and in her arms was a bundle of yellow tulips tied with a white ribbon. Jacob was dressed in white linen pants and a loose shirt. A circle of their friends and family surrounded them. Dennis was there, magically restored to life, and Isabel was standing straight and strong by his side, no crutches in sight. Delia and Sherman stood arm in arm with happy smiles on their faces. There was someone next to them, someone achingly familiar, but the sun was in her face and Sunni couldn’t quite see her. She took a step forward, still holding Jacob’s hand.

  “Mama?” she whispered.

  Rose looked exactly as she had the last time Sunni had seen her; thin and lithe, with long ebony hair falling in a gleaming curtain down her back. Her mother glided forward and took Sunni into her arms. Sunni put her face against her soft neck and breathed in a sweet floral scent that she’d almost forgotten, but knew immediately was her mother’s alone.

  “Mama, am I dead?” she asked.

  Rose stroked Sunni’s hair. “You are at the doorway, my darling, that’s why you see both the living and the dead here.”

  “Which way should I go? ”

  “That’s my Sunni, always wanting to be in control.” Rose stepped back, laughing quietly. “We can’t tell yet. So just enjoy this moment.”

  Still holding one of her hands, she turned Sunni gently around, to where Jacob was standing patiently. Sunni gave him her other hand, closed her eyes and lifted her face to the warm sun, the soft breeze, and the sweet mingled scents of the two vampires she loved.