“Uh… thanx?…” she says contemplating this for about one minute, and then she continues eating her toast.
“You’re not sure of what I’ve said there, are you?” he asks.
“No… it’s not like I wouldn’t like to wear those luxurious clothes and be at the ball… it’s just that” here eyes get dreamy and she looks past her father, “I’d like to be accepting my Valiant Award for writing the first successful interview with the world renowned pirate, or that girl that lived with a chip in her ear for a year without crying, or the amazing Phenomenal shape-shifter, or when I’ve completed my first novel… I’d like to be there, then. You know? And I hope, when I am, you’re there too, and I’m every bit as lovely as you say… father… really.”
Her father finishes his glass of tomato juice and says, “Well, that set my stomach right. I think I’m going to get through this day after all.” he kisses her on the head.
“Thank you for another Sunday brunch. I’ll see you next Sunday, if not before. I’m going u to my room now. You go ahead with the arrangements for Thaddeus Preference’s. I’ll take you there myself.” “Thanx! One things, though, before you go. Who’s that guy who wouldn’t want me to go?”
Her father’s eyebrows knit slightly, “A very wealthy man and a very ancient vampire. He knew you, as a baby, knew OF you, as a baby, knew you’d been born. That’s all. He won’t bother you at Thaddeus. Regal, upstairs office type. Can’t say I’ll talk to him for you. It’s best we leave that alone.” He stands up from the table. “you’re done there, aren’t you?”
He points to her plate. “You want to watch your waistline.”
“No, I think I forgot the compote,” she picks up the spoon and plops it back down into the goo that neither of them touched. Smiling, he leaves the table.
Chapter Two
Jessica stands outside a majestic-looking, old, brick building with a stack of books in her arms. She looks u to the building’s many carvings and gargoyles and sighs a happy sigh. A group of other students walk u the steps into the building. One guy with black hair and a black jacket stops and stands next to her. He looks up at the gargoyles, too.
“Pretty intimidating, isn’t it?” he says as more of a statement than a question.
“What?” Jessica looks at him, “no, actually. Very inspirational,” she says.
“You’re kidding. Inspiration for what, a horror movie?”
Jessica laughs, “I like those ancient carvings,” she smiles.
“I guess,” he says, “What class do you have?”
“I don’t,” she says, “I’m going to the library.”
“Mind if I come along?” he asks.
“No. I guess,” Jessica shrugs.
“What’s your name?” “Theopolis,” he tells her. “Don’t you have class?” Jessica asks.
“Yes. I’d just rather go with you,” he says. Jessica laughs, “Go to class.”
“Can I see you after?”
“Me? Why?” Jessica asks him.
“Because I like - wait, your name?” he asks. “Jessica.”
“I like staying close to a girl who says creepy looking what sits eating other what sits on top of old buildings are ‘inspiring’. you know? Can’t be too careful around here. Rumors of vampires, you know,” he smirks.
Jessica smirks, too, “No!!!…”
“Um-hm,” Theopolis tells her, “I’ll fill you in, after class. What do you say, Jessica?”
“All right, I guess so,” Jessica agrees.
“Meet me here. We can go to the café around the corner.”
“Sounds good. See you then. I hope my teacher doesn’t look like him!” he yells and points to a creepy looking monster carving above the door and runs into the building.
Walking together after class, Theopolis chatters about the decrepit, old hump of a drumlin he had teaching math when Jessica stops in front of a brick boarding house. Theopolis stops, too.
He looks at her and asks, “This where you live?” “Yes. I just moved in,” she says.
“O.”
“I’m still unpacking, moving in.”
“Do you want some help?” Theopolis asks. “No,” Jessica laughs, “but thanx, I guess. I had a nice time. With you.”
“Good,” Theopolis says, “Wanna go to a party tonight?”
Jessica laughs again, “All ready?”
“What do you mean? We don’t have any homework, yet. Well, I do, actually, but not too much. You know, not enough to stay home, so don’t use that lame excuse, just tell me, if you don’t want to go.”
“No, I do. It’s just funny-”
“What?’ Theopolis asks her.
“At home I would never go to parties, you know. Told my Father all the time, ‘no, you go… I’ll stay home.’ I didn’t like going to parties.”
“Well, this one’s different,’ Theopolis tells her. “How so?’
“I’ll be there,” he smiles.
“O corpulent vapor! You’ll be there!” she teases. “So, did your teacher look like the gargoyle?” “He did!” I told you - an absolute escapee - I swear! I also didn’t tell you about ‘the bridge’. We’ll walk by it on the way… I’ll come pick you up. It’ll be scarier that way; but, I’m sure you’ll be ‘inspired’.” “Shut up! I wish I wouldn’t have said it, okay?” Jessica fusses.
“What time?” Theopolis asks her.
“Is it fancy? Dress up or down?”
“Middle,” he says. “5:30,” she tells him.
“Good. We’ll get a bite to eat,” Theopolis says. “A bite? …to eat?” Jessica pauses.
“Yeah, a bite. What’s the matter, you suddenly look like you’ve-”
Jessica says the next words along with him slowly, “seen - a - ghost.” As if it were (it is) a secret code they’d learned, long ago, and just found out that the other knew it, too. They both laugh. “Family suggestion?”
“Thaddeus Preferences?! Yes, my father - he wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Together they say the words they’d both heard many times, “Prestigious alumni.”
Theopolis grins, “Right. So, are you?”
She tosses her head and looks around before she answers, “Yes, you?”
“Mm-hmm,” he says.
“This could be interesting…”
“Don’t think you’re cajoling me,” Jessica insists, “I’m not the weaker vessel.”
Theopolis makes a sound like he’s coughing, “O! No!! No.”
Jessica asks, “Awkward?”
“Doesn’t have to be.” He steps closer to her. He takes her hand. They squeeze hands in a criss-cross shape, kind of like the secret vampire handshake.
FYI - dear readers, if you ever find yourselves alone at night with a vision who utters ‘looks like you’ve seen a ghost’ your only hope of escape is trying the secret handshake which I have, just now, divulged to you. Afterall, anyone could just say they are - a vampire - I suppose; but, these two are for real, and trust me, they know more than just the handshake.
Theopolis and Jessica look at each other and then, feeling slightly silly and just a bit more than awkward, they both let go a nervous laugh.
Jessica sighs, a bit out of relief, “It’ll be nice not having to hide it, at least with one person, around here, right?” She looks up at the building with girls going in and out, going to the window, and black from the window.
“Anyway, I think it will be nice… but, if you’d much rather take somebody else, to the party… I’d understand. I mean, I grew up with it, you know, my father would always rather be with (she points her finger to the window where a girl sets up curtains) one of ‘them’ - a mortal, you know - out at parties rather than home with me, his daughter; but, you know, two vampires - not exactly the family type, are we?”
She laughs, “And it doesn’t bother me… I don’t usually like going out, at night, anyway - always bothered him - parties, maybe this one, I don’t know -”
Theopolis touches her chin and
makes Jessica look up into his eyes, “Jessica, I want to go to the party with you. Okay?”
Jessica smiles, “Okay.”
“You’re a smart girl,” he says.
“I know,” Jessica agrees.
“You caught on quick. I’m glad you did. A real faux pas, if I’d have, you know, practiced my enchantment, on another vampire?!” he laughs.
“I’m joking. I’m not like that anyway. I wasn’t asking you so I could later ‘drain’ you, ‘too weak to go to class’, Diablos Tenders, girl, lighten up! Wear jeans, I want to show you an old haunting site. It’ll be nostalgic!”
He waves, then turns and walks away. Jessica looks up into the window at the girl who is still hanging up her curtains. She looks down at her shoe and gushes a smile. She turns and watches Theopolis walk away into the evening light, but only for a minute. All at once, a girl carrying moving box bumps into her. Jessica looks quickly at the girl, helping catch the box before it falls, keeping its contents from spilling onto the sidewalk.
“Scuse you!” the girl says rudely.
“O, its alright. I’m okay,” Jessica tells her.
“Sheesh. Whatever. I don’t care,” the girl snaps and walks up the stairs, through the doorway of the girls dorming house.
Jessica turns around, throws up her hands, and says to her back as it goes through the doorway, “Well, thanx a lot, then, just thought you weren’t deliberately being a Witch!”
Donna, a girl who has moved onto the same floor as Jessica, walks up behind and says, “Don’t mind her, she isn’t nice to anyone. Seriously isn’t worth getting upset over, is it?” She sits down onto a step and opens a brown, paper bag that she has been carrying.
“Want one?” she asks as she begins to open u a package of gum.
“Sure,” Jessica says.
“Have two. I’m Donna,” she hands over the gum and smiles. Jessica takes the gum and chomps, listening to Donna dish about the girls in the boarding house and especially the nasty witch who’d bumped into her until she is calmed down and thinking about what she will wear to the party.
As evening approaches, Jessica pulls on her third sweater - she is still deciding what to wear - when there is a knock at her dorm room’s door. She opens it. Her hair, a bit staticky from the sweaters, stands nearly straight u in back due to the static cling. “Hey!” Theopolis says as he looks at her, hair. “Hi,” she says, “you ready?”
“Yeah,” he says, “let’s go?” Jessica grabs her keys and scarf, turns off the light, and out they go. Theopolis reaches over and pats the fly-away whisps of hair back down toward her head.
“What?” Jessica asks, “are you doing?”
“Your hair,” he laughs, “were you trying on hats?”
“No. Why?”
“Nothing,” he says, “it’s just, you look like my mom always says about my hair, something about a black cat’s at Halloween.”
“O,” she says, and presses her hands to the top of her head.
“Angora sweaters,” she explains, “the static cling, you know.”
“It looks good, now,” he says, “you got it.” There is a bit of awkward silence and then they both start to ask each other a question at the same time. Jessica stops talking and Theopolis asks her again, “Did you get any studying done?”
“Not yet, no. You?”
“Nuh-uh!” he swears, “not the type. But I thought -”
She interrupts, “You thought I would.”
“Yeah, but I guess not.”
“Yeah,” she says smugly, “I guess not. Not this time. I usually would have, but I, um, sat with Donna, this girl. She had all sorts of stories about the girls where I live.”
“Great! Tell me!” he says.
“No!” she insists.
Walking in the cold, night air, the two arrive at an underpass. They step beneath the dark, crumbled brick archway where gnarled vines twist about the brick casting shadows which catch the eye like spider webs in sunlight beneath the road, the overpass, where cars and trucks might noisly drive above; but, on this night, none do, and in the stillness Jessica can hear her footsteps crunch against bits of fallen brick. “Bat site,” Theopolis tells her.
“Really?”
“Yeah, famous for it,” he says. Jessica stops under the archways and looks up.
“So, those vampire legends you were going to tell me… Did you know - before you came here - about the history, the legends?”
“Yeah. Did you?” he asks.
“No,” Jessica admits, matter-of-factly, “but now I understand why this place was so strongly ‘suggested’. Father hated the thought of Oxford.” Theopolis grabs her hand and nearly runs.
“Follow me!” he shouts, “I want to show you the Stygian Downs Bridge.” Jessica follows him, quickly as she can, off the sidewalk and up the steep grade from the underpass. Some of the path is muddy and Theopolis lets go of her hand. He takes a break past the slippery areas until she catches up. She smiles when he looks back at her.
“You making it okay?” he asks.
“Sure,” Jessica says, a bit winded, “how much further?”
“Not far,” he says, “down these train tracks a little way.”
The two walk several steps further. There, in the mist that looms over the canyon, Jessica can see the silhouette of a long, black, spidery structure of an ancient cantilever bridge. Just the very structure of a cantilever bridge looks daunting in the darkness, but with the mist, this night, the bridge looks spooky - the perfect bridge to ‘star’ in a vampire legend, and this one does. It hangs over a very steep canyon from which mist floats up from an inferred, but not visible waterway (river or stream_ - which really isn’t water at all and which can’t be seen through the mist year ‘round. No matter the season, the mist is always present, usually covering part of the bridge except for extremely sunny days, which, since the first vampire‘s arrival, is a very rare event for Heavonshire. Theopolis explains these facts to Jessica.
“What do you think?” Theopolis asks, “Wicked huh?”
Jessica looks into the mist with hesitation she responds, “I guess you’re more into this than I am.”
Theopolis stops walking, “What, don’t you like it?”
“It looks kind of scary,” Jessica says, “I mean, how does that rickety old thing even stay up? Looks like structural damage, to me. I’m not sure it’s safe to walk on.”
Theopolis laughs, “Walk on? We’re going under it. Cricoid!”
“There’s something I have to tell you… I just found out myself - explains a lot about me, though - I’m only half,” Jessica tells him.
“Half?” Theopolis asks.
Jessica explains, “My mother wasn’t well, you know -”
“You can say it,” Theopolis teases.
He yells the word - a word made up of more than letters and syllables, a word made up of souls, of eternity, “V-a-m-p-i-r-e!“ The ancient word echoes out into the darkness and the mist; it echoes through the canyon.
He smiles, turns to her, “Try it!“
Jessica hesitates, only a minute, then she yells it too, “V-a-m-p-i-r-e! We’re vampires!”
Theopolis mimics an old movie vampire’s evil laugh and listens to it echo through the canyon walls. The misty echo jeers back at them, “Ahh, ahh, ahh!”
“Feel better?” he asks her.
“Kind of.” Jessica yells out into the mist again, “I’m only half vampire!”
Theopolis laughs and yells, “I’m three quarters!”
“Two bits!” Jessica yells.
“She means bites!” Theopolis yells at the mist.
Jessica starts giggling, “Bite me!! Raaa!”
Theopolis screams, “Bite! Bite! Bite!” Both are suddenly quiet, listening to the mixture of echoes bounce from the canyon walls and staring out into the mist. Slowly they look at each other, almost one eye at a time.
Jessica is the first to ask what they are both wondering, “Have you, bitten?”
Theo
polis starts to shake his head yes, but then says, “No.”
Jessica demands clarification, “Which one is it? Yes or no?”
“No,” he admits, “You?”
“Uh-huh,” Jessica smiles, feeling for the first time that she has one-upped someone in something vampirish.
“NO!” Theopolis exclaims with complete astonishment, “But you’re all prim and ‘I’m only half’, and -” and here he mocks her in a girlish voice - “that bridge looks scar-y, are you sure we can walk on it?…No,” he says, “I don’t believe it. You? And not ME? Come on.”
“Uh-huh. I have,” she says timidly.
“No!!” He yells through the canyon, “I’ve been beaten by a Half!”
“I thought you said Half didn’t matter, and it’s not a contest.”
Theopolis sneers at her, “You look like you don’t even like blood.”
Jessica smirks and looks away, “That’s what my Father always says.”
“Come on,” Theopolis nearly whines, “now you’re not getting out of this.”
Jessica steps back away from the looming edge of the cantilever bridge, “O Devil’s boot clips and made up reasons! What did I tell you for?” she asks.
Theopolis leads her to the very edge of the bridge, holding her hand.
“This is that time,” he tells her, “where you jump, but you don’t jump. Ever hear of that?”
Jessica shakes her head, no, and says, “Never.” She feels her knees shaking too, but thinks it might be the coolness of the misty air.
“Ever gone into bat form?” Theopolis asks her.
“Never. You?”
And Jessica hears Theopolis sigh with relief, his chest puffs out, “Lots of times. Me and my brother - growing up - it was our favorite trick!”
“I don’t know if I can,” Jessica says. “I’ve flown short distances, since I was a child, but not long distances, and not in bat form. Can halfs do that?” she pulls his hand back away from the edge, “let’s go back.”
Legend of Stygian Downs (Vampire DeAngeliuson Book 2) Page 2
