by Amy Cross
"Amen," Saffron whispered softly.
In the distance, a dark line had begun to appear on the horizon. The rocks of the Albanian coast were looming, and the boat would soon run aground if Saffron couldn't get it back on course.
Turning and walking across the deck, he realized he'd have to get to the radio and inform the Albanian coastguard of his situation. There was no way he could get the boat to port alone, even with his engineering experience. There'd also be the matter of explaining what had happened during the journey, a task that would be made more difficult by the fact that the vampire had been thrown overboard. Still, Saffron reminded himself that he had God's blessing, and he was confident that the Lord would guide him and ensure that he could get on his way swiftly to spread the world of true faith. Feeling an unfamiliar sense of total inner peace, he opened the door to the bridge.
He stopped dead in his tracks, unable to believe what he was seeing.
Efferson was standing on the other side of the door, staring at him.
"You're alive!" Saffron said, his joy tinged with fear.
Slowly, Efferson stepped toward him. There was something strange about the way he moved, something stiff and awkward. His skin was pale and sickly-looking, and there were two round wounds, like bite marks, on one side of his neck.
"How did you escape the creature?" Saffron asked, taking a step back. "How did you persuade him to spare you?"
"I didn't," Efferson said as he reached out, grabbed Saffron by the shoulder, and pulled him closer. Smiling, he revealed two sharp fangs.
A Brief Conversation With a Beautiful Vampire in a Coffee Shop
Chapter One
"I'm waiting for a girl."
"I'm a girl."
"A particular girl."
"Oh, I see." She paused for a moment. "So you're that kind of guy."
"I guess so."
She smiled. "What's her name?"
"Lucy."
"Lucky Lucy, huh?" There was an awkward pause. "And where is she right now?"
"On a bus. She should be here in a few minutes."
"How romantic."
"Not really."
"You don't think so? A guy meeting his girl off the bus, late at night in the heart of Sofia? You don't think that's fabulously romantic."
"Maybe. I hadn't thought of it like that."
"Lucky Lucy. Her guy doesn't even realize when he's being romantic."
"I guess."
"Well, anyway, that counts me out. My name's not Lucy. My name's Madeleine. Better luck next time, right?"
Adam smiled. Sitting here in a little cafe near the bus station, he'd never expected to have company while he waited for Lucy to arrive. He'd just planned to sit and drink a few cups of tea, while waiting for Lucy's bus to pull in on the other side of the rain-soaked late-night town square. But this strange girl, this Madeleine, had plonked herself down at the next table and started up a conversation, and something about her interested Adam. She was beautiful, sure, but that wasn't why he was talking to her. At least, that's what he kept telling himself.
"I keep expecting Monsieur LeClerc to come stumbling through the door," Madeleine said with a smile. "Small cafes always make me think of that TV show. What was it called again?"
"Sorry," Adam replied. "No idea."
"I guess you're too young to have seen it."
"I'm twenty-two. You don't look any older."
"That's a fabulous thing for you to say."
Taking another sip from his tea, Adam reminded himself not to get too deep into a conversation with this woman. He'd made mistakes in the past, but although Madeleine was certainly attractive, he was in no mood to get flirty. Not tonight. Not after everything he'd been through with Lucy. He wasn't that kind of guy anymore.
"So how long have the pair of you been dating?" Madeleine asked after a moment, as she rolled a cigarette. "You and this Lucy girl, I mean."
"We were together for two years," Adam replied, wondering how much he should tell this total stranger. "Then we kind of... Things went a little wrong, and we haven't seen each other for six months."
"But she's coming to meet you now?"
He nodded.
"So you're getting back together?"
"Yeah," Adam said, glancing over at the window as the wind changed and blew a fresh blast of rain against the glass. "Maybe. That's the plan."
"She must love you."
"I don't know," he replied, feeling a little uncomfortable. "I mean, we had a good thing going for a while, but..." He paused, and after a moment he realized that Madeleine was staring right at him. "I fucked it up," he said eventually, with a faint smile. "There, I admitted it. I fooled around with another girl, and it all got out of hand. Lucy found out and broke up with me. It was my fault. I totally deserved it."
"Huh," Madeleine said, eying him cautiously. "But... she's giving you a second chance?"
"Maybe."
"Maybe? How far's she traveling to see you tonight?"
"A couple of days," he replied. "She's been staying in Bucharest."
"A couple of days? My God, she's definitely giving you a second chance." Lighting her cigarette, she took a long drag before grabbing her glass of wine and taking a sip. "Everyone deserves a second chance," she added eventually, with a hint of sadness in her eyes. "Well, almost everyone."
"I've changed," Adam replied, sipping from his cup of tea. "I'd never do anything like that again. I've told her over and over again. It was a one-time mistake. There was just this girl I met at a party and..." He paused for a moment. "Okay, you know what? I have no idea why I'm even telling you all this. I'm sorry. I should just shut up."
"Don't apologize," Madeleine said, biting her bottom lip for a moment. "I just have that kind of face. People always feel like they wanna tell me all about their lives." She took another drag from her cigarette. "It's not something I encourage, but I've given up fighting it. People just seem to look at me and figure I'm a good listener."
"And are you?"
"What makes you think you've changed?" she replied evasively. "What makes you think anyone can change?"
"I've learned from my mistakes."
"Bullshit."
"It's true. I made a colossal error of judgment, but I've learned from it. There's no way I'd ever hurt Lucy again. Not ever."
"Let me give you some advice," Madeleine replied. "Humans, and in fact creatures in general, don't change. Sure, they can learn stuff, but deep down, on a basic level, there's no room for change. There's nothing we can do about our most innate characteristics. You can never get rid of the part of yourself that cheats on girls, just as I can never..." She paused. "We are who we are. It's dangerous for us to think we can change."
"Speak for yourself," Adam said, feeling a little annoyed by Madeleine's insistence. He'd spent the past few months forcing himself to become a better person, and he damn well wasn't going to have some random woman in a coffee shop tell him he was wrong.
"It's the truth," Madeleine said eventually. "A leopard can't change its spots, a tiger can't change its stripes, and a cheater can't stop cheating. We're all born into a mold, you know."
"And what's your mold?" Adam asked testily.
Madeleine shrugged.
"Don't you have any faults?" Adam continued, determined to pick away at her cool and calm demeanor.
"Perhaps one or two," she replied. "I've left a trail of blood behind me, just like everyone else. My brother, in particular, has suffered dreadfully because of my actions. He could have lived such an interesting life over the years, but unfortunately I put him in a situation that prevented him from doing very much at all."
"Isn't he mad at you?"
"I expect so. It's been a while since I heard from him, although I have a feeling he might very well be showing his face before too long. Call it female intuition." She paused for a moment as she studied Adam's face. "You remind me of him a little," she added eventually. "Your eyes, and your jawline."
Adam paused, dete
rmined to pick his words carefully. "I admit that I made a mistake when I cheated on Lucy," he said firmly, "and I admit that it was difficult to face up to what I did and address my failings. But I did face up to it and I have changed. It's too easy to just sit around and claim that no-one can change. That's an easy excuse. Change is difficult, but it's worth it. If you can't manage it, maybe you just haven't tried hard enough."
"Maybe," Madeleine replied with a sigh. "Let's see how you feel in a few years' time, though. Right now, I bet the future seems so rosy. But do you really think you can change the fiber of your being? I don't just mean your behavior, but your thought processes. Can you actually become another person?"
"I don't think there's much point in us continuing this debate," Adam replied. "You've got your opinion, I've got mine, and it's probably best if we just..." He turned and looked over at the window as a car drove past, and for a moment he wondered if perhaps Lucy had arrived a few minutes early. Realizing it wasn't her, however, he noticed that rain had begun to fall outside. "I'm not really into esoteric theoretical discussions," he continued, turning back to Madeleine. "Don't take this the wrong way, but I'd kinda like to sit and gather my thoughts for when Lucy arrives."
"Of course," Madeleine said, gathering her wine glass and newspaper and getting to her feet. "It's a little drafty by the window anyway. I think I'll shift over to the back."
"I didn't mean you have to move," Adam said.
"It's fine," Madeleine replied, glancing out the window. "It's a night for being alone, anyway. Good luck with your girl. I hope you're right. I hope you've changed, and I hope you'll be very happy together." With that, she made her way over to a table at the other side of the cafe.
Taking a deep breath, Adam stared over at the door. He knew Madeleine was wrong; he knew he had changed, and he knew he could be the kind of man Lucy deserved. Since the break-up, he'd come to realize just how important Lucy had been to him, and he was determined to make sure this time that nothing could possibly go wrong. He knew there'd always be cynics in the world, but deep in his heart he was absolutely certain that his love for Lucy would be enough to see him through any bad times. Love, he believed, was transformative, and ultimately it would be love that would help him to change. If Madeleine or anyone else didn't understand that, he figured it wasn't his job to teach them. It would just have to be their loss.
Chapter Two
Standing in the doorway, sheltering from the rain, Adam stared out at the dark, deserted town square. There was no sign of a bus, no sign that a bus was even expected, and as he checked his watch he saw that it was close to midnight. If Lucy didn't arrive soon, he was going to start getting worried, but he figured the bad weather had probably just caused some delays. He'd waited months for this chance, so he figured he could wait a few more minutes.
Turning and pushing the door open, he headed back inside. As he walked over to his table, he glanced over at Madeleine and briefly made eye contact with her, before she looked back down at her book. Sitting down, Adam was careful to position his chair so that he was facing the window. The last thing he needed was to get into another conversation with that crazy woman. In fact, he was getting kind of annoyed by the fact that she was still in the cafe at all. It was almost as if she was waiting for something to happen, and Adam felt a slight shiver run down his spine as he realized that he was being tested.
"You don't think she'll show," he said suddenly, turning to Madeleine. "You don't, do you?"
"Don't I?"
"You think she won't give me a second chance."
"Do I?"
Sighing, Adam immediately realized that he shouldn't have said anything. He glanced over at the old guy behind the bar, who seemed engrossed in his newspaper. Turning back to Madeleine, Adam paused for a moment. "You think she's gonna stand me up," he continued. "I can tell. It's why you're still sitting there."
"I'm just reading my book," Madeleine said, her voice filled with innocent surprise.
"No," Adam said, shaking his head. "You think the bus is gonna pull up and there'll be no sign of Lucy. That's what you think, and you're waiting to be proved right, except you're not! You're wrong! She's gonna be here!"
"Who are you trying to persuade?" Madeleine asked, still sitting with her book open.
"She loves me!"
"Oh, God," Madeleine said, rolling her eyes. "Why does this always happen to me? I can't go anywhere without someone starting up a conversation and trying to prove something."
"You said -"
"I just gave you my opinion earlier," she replied, sounding a little annoyed. "That's all. It's still my opinion, and I hardly think that love has anything to do with it. Love's just a word that humans made up years ago to cover a range of very different emotions. Desire, fear, pity, hatred, anger... You just took all these concepts and instead of dealing with them each individually, you mashed them together and invented this new word. Love. It's not magic, you know. Love doesn't mean a damn thing."
Shocked by her comments, Adam stared at her for a moment.
"What?" she asked eventually. "Are you going to prove me wrong?"
"I just feel sorry for you," he replied. "How can you live if you don't believe in love?"
"I didn't say I don't believe in it," she continued. "I merely said that I don't think it works like some kind of magic drug. Do you really think love is going to keep you from making a mistake? You say you love this Lucy girl, but you cheated on her. So are you now claiming that you can stop yourself cheating on her again if you love her a little more? Is that your great plan?"
"Have you ever been in love?" Adam asked.
"Me?" She paused. "That's a rather personal question."
"So you haven't?"
"Of course I have."
"How many times?"
Smiling, she took a sip from her wine. "Only once," she said eventually, with a hint of sadness in her eyes. "No-one can love more than once in their lifetime. It just doesn't work that way. We can only give our love to one person, and we have to take it back before we can give it to someone else. Real love... True love... It's a powerful thing, even after many, many years."
"So you do believe in something, then," Adam replied.
"I believe love can do many things," Madeleine said, "but it can't save us from ourselves. That crack that runs through your soul, the flaw that allowed you to cheat on the woman you claim to love, is still there. It doesn't matter how much you say you love her, the crack will always be a part of you. The best thing to do is to acknowledge it and treat it wait caution. Don't make the mistake of fooling yourself into believing that you've managed to make it go away."
"I have."
"You're like a man in a tiger cage," she continued, "who brings the beast down and then turns his back on it, believing it to be dead. A terrible mistake. So much blood." She paused for a moment. "That's not a metaphor, either. I actually saw a man do that once, and my God, there was so much blood when the tiger got its claws into him. The poor man never stood a chance. Then again, it was all a long time ago. But the tiger couldn't change. He needed to kill that man. The man made a mistake when he thought he'd calmed the tiger's instincts. Like I said before, we are what we are, and we must accept that if we're to keep from causing terrible pain to others. If I walked out the door right now, and then I bumped into you again in a hundred years, you'd still be exactly the same person, and so would I."
"You're wrong," Adam said. "I'm in love, and when Lucy gets here, we're going to be together forever."
"She's very late, though," Madeleine replied, checking her watch. "What do you think could possibly have delayed her?"
"Maybe the bus broke down."
"Maybe," Madeleine replied, narrowing her eyes for a moment as she spotted something outside the window. "Isn't that the bus now?"
Turning, Adam saw that she was right. A rickety old bus was pulling into the stop across the road. Hurrying to the door, Adam rushed out into the rain and hurried over to the bus stop,
just in time to see the doors open.
"End of the line," the driver barked.
"I'm waiting for someone," Adam said, stepping on-board and seeing that there were no passengers. "Where is she?" he asked after a moment, unable to accept that the bus was empty.
"End of the line," the driver said again. "Go on, get off!"
"There was a woman," Adam said, turning to him. "She got on maybe somewhere around Voluyak. About my age, blonde with blue eyes. She probably had a suitcase with her, and..." He paused as he realized that he was starting to sound desperate. "You didn't see her?" he asked eventually.
The bus driver shook his head.
Without saying anything, Adam stepped down off the bus and watched as the doors closed. Moments later, there was a grinding sound and the bus eased away and disappeared into the night. Turning and looking back across the square, Adam couldn't quite believe that there was no sign of Lucy. He still half hoped that maybe she'd got off a stop early and persuaded the driver to lie, just so she could jump out of the shadows as a surprise. As the rain continued to pour down, however, Adam realized that she wasn't coming. Not now, and probably not ever. Taking his phone from his pocket, he saw that there were no messages, and when he tried to call Lucy's number, he was sent straight to voice-mail.
Walking slowly back across the square, he eventually reached the cafe and pushed the door open. The first thing he saw was Madeleine, sitting in the far corner with her book, and it was immediately clear that she was being very careful not to make eye contact with him.
"Give me a beer," he said to the barman, placing some coins on the bar. Moments later, with a glass of beer in his hand, he wandered over to his table, where he stopped and looked across at Madeleine. Her studious attempt to avoid eye contact was kind of cute, he realized, although it was also fairly annoying. It was pretty clear that she was feeling kind of smug now that he'd been stood up, and Adam didn't know whether to be grateful or pissed off that she was making no effort to celebrate her victory.
For the next few minutes, Adam sat at his table and sipped from his beer. Madeleine's silence was filling the room, but although he felt he'd have to talk to her eventually, right now Adam was determined not to give her the satisfaction. Then again, he realized, he didn't have to talk to her. She was no-one to him, just a stranger he'd met in a late-night cafe, and he figured he could quite easily just get up and walk out the door without ever having to worry about bumping into her again. Still, something made him feel as if he wanted to talk to her a little more. It was as if her mind was reaching across the room and forcing its way into his consciousness, teasing him to pay her some more attention.
