Heart of the Vampire (Vanderlind Castle)

by Gayla Twist

  Closing his eyes, his brows drawn down in a severe V, Jessie said, “I know. I feel the same way, but you can’t invite me into your home. Please, just withdraw your invitation. Tell me I am not welcome. Please.”

  He looked so genuinely tormented that I forced myself to control my own tears. “You’re not welcome in our house,” I said in a jagged whisper. “I take back my invitation.”

  His body visibly relaxed, his shoulders drooping slightly. He opened his eyes. “Thank you,” he said in a voice no more steady than my own. He knelt down to sit on the roof of the porch, just like he used to do before he decided it was too dangerous for us to be together. “Please sit with me. There are things I have to tell you,” he said.

  I knelt down, meaning to just lean on the window sill like I used to when we would rendezvous each night for conversations about his life being a vampire. I had every intention of being calm and listening to what he had to say.

  Somehow, I found myself lunging out the window, tears still streaking my face. Jessie grabbed me about the waist and pulled me into his lap, his lips finding mine, our embrace stealing my breath.

  I don’t know how long we kissed. It could have been an hour or only a few seconds. I only know that all the noise that had been blaring in my head since the last time I saw him was suddenly silenced. The heavy weight that had been pressing down on my chest for weeks and weeks finally lifted.

  Eventually, I needed to catch my breath and pulled back slightly. “Oh, my darling,” Jessie whispered, burying his face into the tempest of curls that was my hair and inhaling deeply. “I have missed you so much.”

  My heart was about to burst with joy. For weeks, I had tortured myself with thoughts that he didn’t really care about me. That he was only attracted to me because I reminded him of a girl he used to love decades before I was even born. “Are you hurt?” Jessie asked. “Did Ilona get to you?”

  “No.” I shook my head. “I’m fine. But I don’t understand what was going on with Ilona. It felt like she was trying to control me, like she was somehow mentally compelling me to open the window and invite her in.”

  Jessie did not lift his head from where he had burrowed. “Some vampires have influence over humans. It very much plays upon a human’s base need to please and fit in. It takes a strong will not to give in to their wishes.”

  “Oh,” I said softly. That explained why it felt so very much like peer pressure.

  After several more minutes of the two of us just sitting there, our arms wrapped around each other, breathing in each other’s scent, Jessie stiffened a little and said, “I have things to tell you. I think it’s best if you go back into your house now.”

  “But I don’t want to,” I said, sounding like a sullen child. “Why can’t we talk out here?”

  “Because there are important things that I need to tell you, and I need to be able to concentrate,” he said, his voice firm. “And besides,” he said, swallowing, “I haven’t eaten in a long time.”

  I was in love with Jessie, but I wasn’t suicidal. When a vampire tells me that he is hungry, I listen. I quickly disengaged myself and shimmied back through the window.

  Once I was situated safely inside the house, I turned back to Jessie and waited. I didn’t want to prompt him into action with any questions because that would mean our time together would end all the more quickly. It made me happy just to gaze at his beautiful face. I was almost disappointed when he began to speak.

  “You remember who the Bishops are, don’t you?” he began.

  I nodded. “Kind of,” I told him. “You said they were a vampire family that you guys use as kind of a governing body.”

  “They are the oldest vampire family in our recorded history,” Jessie explained. “That’s why they are frequently referred to as The First Family. And yes, they do govern us.”

  Keeping a family going after one member was turned into a vampire, if he decided to convert the rest of the family, took a lot of planning. “How have they kept their line going for so long?” I had to wonder.

  “It’s not easy. And there’s a lot of work to be done as far as governing, so the Bishops sometimes adopt vampires from other families to help ease the load.”

  “Okay.” I wasn’t sure where he was going with this topic.

  Jessie sighed and then ran his fingers through his hair several times. I had to assume this habit was leftover from his human days. “Well, the Bishops are not pleased about Viktor’s death,” he finally said. “In fact, they are very displeased.”

  “But...” I had thought Viktor was out of our lives, but staking him apparently wasn’t the end of it. “Can’t you just explain to them that he was trying to kill me and you were just defending me? He was the one that kept coming after you. It’s not like you were bothering him.”

  “I know, and I’ve tried to explain that, but not all vampires value humans the way I do. That’s why Ilona was here.”

  “She didn’t even like Viktor,” I grumbled.

  “Yes, but she is very caught up in the honor of vampires,” Jessie told me. “Plus,” his voice audibly dropped in volume, “there might have been a little envy there. Her honor might not have been so offended if I hadn’t injured her pride.”

  “What?” I asked, not sure that I’d heard him correctly.

  If a vampire could blush, I’m sure Jessie would have been red. “She was interested in me romantically a couple of decades ago, and I didn’t feel the same,” he admitted.

  “Romantically?” I was surprised. “She has to be in her thirties. Isn’t that a bit pervy?”

  Jessie shrugged. “She was just turned later in her human life than I was.”

  “But still.” I couldn’t wrap my head around it.

  “In vampire years, I’m older than her.”

  “You weren’t interested?” I asked. Ilona was beautiful, in a bloodthirsty sort of way.

  “No.” He shook his head. “I’ve only ever loved two girls in my life, neither one of them being a vampire.”

  I felt a wave of pleasure wash over me. Was that Jessie’s way of saying he loved me? Was it safe to assume I was the second girl?

  When Jessie was first turned, about eighty years ago, he fell deeply in love with my great grandmother’s sister, Colette Gibson. He’d wanted to conjoin with her, which was vampire speak for when a vampire marries a human. If he’d done it, he would have never been able to be with another person—human or vampire. Colette would have been his only love, no matter how long he lived. But on the night they were to run away together, she disappeared, never to be heard from again. My great grandma Gibson was still alive, and she still mourned the loss of her sister. She was in her nineties, and her mind was starting to go, so she usually called me Lettie when I went to visit her at the old age home. I apparently had a passing resemblance to her sister, but Colette was supposed to have been the town beauty, so it couldn’t have been that close of a resemblance.

  I used to find it disturbing when Grandma Gibson mistook me for a girl who more than likely had been murdered. But after meeting Jessie and learning more about his relationship with Lettie, the dreams I’d had since childhood made a lot more sense. I wasn’t sure that I believed in reincarnation, but I knew that I was somehow connected to Jessie Vanderlind, and that was more than likely through my long lost ancestor.

  “After Viktor died, I contacted the authorities and explained what happened,” Jessie went on. “I wanted them to hear it from me first and not through rumors. Viktor wasn’t very well liked in our community, and I think most vampires just assumed it was only a matter of time before he pushed someone too far. But then word got to the Bishops about your involvement.” Jessie stared at his hands, knitting his fingers together. I longed to reach out and give them a reassuring squeeze. “I had tried to downplay your part in it, just focus on the conflict with Viktor and myself. And no one was at the pier when Viktor died besides us, so I wasn’t too worried. But I’m afraid there’s going to be an official inquest.�
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  “Okay,” I said. “What does that mean?”

  He took a deep breath. “It means we have to go to Budapest.”

  “Budapest?” I repeated, my brain not really taking it in.

  “I’m afraid so,” Jessie replied.

  “Budapest as in...” I tried hard to recall my lessons in geography. “Budapest as in Hungary?” I guessed.

  “Precisely. That’s where most of the Bishops live. It’s our base of government.”

  “Jessie, I can’t just drop everything and go to Hungary,” I told him. “I’m in high school. What would I tell my mom?”

  His brows narrowed as if he’d never considered the logistics of getting a high school girl to Europe without alarming her parent. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “But we have to figure something out.”

  “Can’t we just Skype or something?” I asked. “I mean, I really can’t just sneak off to Budapest. You need to explain to the Bishops that I can’t take the time off of school. If they really need to see me, we can maybe figure something out for Christmas break. Fake an exchange program or something.”

  Shaking his head, Jessie said, “The Bishops won’t accept that.”

  “I’m afraid they’re going to have to,” I insisted.

  “Aurora, please listen.” He reached through the open window and took my hand, sending tingles up my spine. “You are in grave danger. The Bishops do not suffer excuses. We have to figure something out.”

  The sternness of his voice, tinged with desperation, made me afraid. Not that he would harm me, but I knew he wouldn’t frighten me unnecessarily, so I had to take the situation seriously. I couldn’t begin to fathom a lie that would be believable enough to fool my mother. Plus what was I supposed to do about school? And paying for a ticket to Budapest? And, well... everything. “I don’t even have a passport,” I finally managed to squeak.

  A small smile began to form on Jessie’s lips. I assumed it was more caused by relief than happiness. He realized that he had gotten through to me. “That’s okay,” he said. “We’ll need to get you a fake one, anyway.”

  “What?” I stammered with the realization that, on top of everything else, forged government documents would be involved. “Why?”

  “Because you’re a minor in the eyes of the law, so we need to make you over eighteen. Plus you’ll be flying with a corpse, so it’ll help if you’re older. Things might get a bit tricky.”

  “I’m going to what?” I exclaimed.

  “It’s not that easy for vampires to fly,” he said. “I mean, when we have to do it by plane. Very few flights happen only at night. Plus, there is no direct flight from Tiburon, Ohio, to Budapest.”

  “So... How does this work?” I asked.

  “If for some reason we have to take a plane, vampires need a human escort to ferry them through customs and everything. You’ll have to see me through.”

  “You mean you’ll be in a...” I couldn’t bring myself to say the word coffin. I had accepted that vampires existed, and I knew Jessie was a vampire. But he was so full of life, so beautiful, sitting there talking, holding my hand. It was hard to realize that he was actually the undead. If I was to press my ear against his chest, there would be no heartbeat.

  “Normally, when I visit Budapest, I fly in stages. But without the airplane. And just stay at safe houses during the day,” Jessie explained.

  “Well, why don’t you just do that?” I asked. “I can meet you there.” I didn’t want to let on that I was feeling a bit panicked about the flying-with-a-corpse thing.

  Jessie shook his head. “I thought about that. It will look better if we travel together.”

  “What do you mean, ‘look better.’ Why do we have to worry about that?”

  “We have to convince the Bishops that we are close,” he said, his voice dropping in volume.

  My heart quickened a beat. “How close?” I asked, tilting my head to the side and pressing my hand to my cheek.

  “Very close.” Jessie looked out into the night, then back at me, then into the night again. Finally, he said, “We have to convince the Bishops that we intend to be conjoined.”

  “What are you talking about?” I gasped, finding myself barely able to breathe. “Conjoined?” I wondered what it felt like to hyperventilate and if I should get a paper bag. “You mean, they think... You want them to think...”

  “Breathe, Aurora,” Jessie said, placing his hand on my arm. Physical contact was not helping me to become calm. “I told the Bishops that we intend to wed as vampire and human. They have to believe it. We must make them believe it.”

  “But why?” I could see spots behind my eyes. I wondered if I should put my head between my knees.

  “Aurora,” he said, his voice cracking. “If they think that I simply killed a vampire to save a human, it’ll be a death sentence for you, and I will be buried alive for a hundred years.”

  “It’ll... what?”

  Jessie closed his eyes and sighed. “The Bishops don’t believe a vampire should ever value a human’s life over a fellow vampire. I had to tell them that we were in love and intended to be conjoined.”

  “You did?” I gulped.

  “It was the only way to spare your life. And everything was going fine. I’m in good standing with the Bishops, so they believed me. But then someone from the party wrote to the Bishops, telling them that we’d only known each other briefly.”

  “Why would someone do that?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, shrugging. “Why would Ilona hunt you down when she didn’t actually care about Viktor? Vampires are very proud.”

  “So, now what?” I asked, feeling the worst was yet to come.

  “We have to go to Budapest,” he said. “And we need to convince the Bishops that we are in love and intend to be conjoined because...” Jessie drew a deep breath and then blurted, “Because you’re the reincarnation of Colette Gibson.”

  Chapter 6

  I wished it was still appropriate for women to swoon because that was what I felt like doing. The spots in front of my eyes got much worse. “But...” I stuttered. “But I’m not the reincarnation of...”

  “No, you are,” Jessie said in an urgent voice. “You have to convince yourself that you are.”

  “But, I don’t...” The world was spinning slightly to the left, and I braced myself with a hand on each side of the windowsill. “Jessie, I’m not Colette. I don’t want to be Colette. I’m Aurora, and that’s all there is to it.”

  “I know,” he insisted. “I know you’re Aurora. Trust me, I know. But for your own sake, you have to convince yourself that you’re her. You have some of Colette’s memories. You’ve even said that yourself. You dream some of her memories, so you are connected to her in some way.” Jessie leaned forward to grip me by the shoulders, his voice taking on a new intensity. “We have to convince the Bishops that you’re Colette. They have to believe it without reservation. If they have even an ounce of doubt, they could rule against us and then... And then...” Jessie’s eyes were blazing, and he was squeezing my shoulders so hard they began to throb. He was even shaking me just a little in his desperation to get his point through to me.

  “Ow...” I let out a small whimper.

  Realizing what he was doing, Jessie gulped and released me. “I’m sorry. Are you okay?” he asked.

  “I’m fine,” I said, massaging my shoulders. “And I believe you. But I still don’t see a way I can drop everything and take off for Budapest. Not without freaking my mom out.”

  “Having you disappear for a few days is nothing compared to you disappearing forever,” Jessie said in a barely audible voice.

  “How long do we have?” I asked. “Can you stall them for a couple of weeks while we try to figure something out?”

  Jessie thought about it, but even as he was doing so, he was shaking his head. “I could try,” he finally said. “But every day we delay, you are in more danger.”

  Mentioning my mother had given me an idea. It
was probably the best chance we had although we would have to act quickly. Still, I wasn’t ready to share it with Jessie yet. I had to think it over and decide if I was willing to do something that would hurt my mother a great deal but at least give me a few days to jet off to Hungary and try to explain to a bunch of vampires why they should spare my life. “I might have a plan,” I said.

  “What is it?” Jessie asked eagerly.

  “I don’t want to tell you,” I said. “Not yet. I want to think it through.”

  He pinched his lips together, as if to swallow words that were already on his tongue. “I understand,” he said after several moments. “Would tomorrow night be enough time for you to think it through?”

  I shrugged, letting out a large sigh. “I guess it’ll have to be.”

  “Until tomorrow then. Good night,” he whispered before gathering his legs under him and launching off the porch roof. It was only a second before he had disappeared into the night.

  As soon as he was gone, I closed the window and drew the curtains. If Ilona was out there, who knew how many other vampires were skulking around, waiting to taste my blood. The mere thought of it gave me chills, and I hurriedly got ready for bed.

  With the covers pulled up under my chin, I stared at the ceiling, wide awake. My right hand sought my Pools of Light pendant, and I slid the smooth crystal back and forth across my lips, like I always did when I lay awake at night thinking of Jessie.

  If Jessie could stall the Bishops for a few days then I could probably swing a lie that would enable me to sneak off to Budapest. The only problem was, the lie would hurt my mother very deeply, and I just hated to do that to her.

  Still, me being killed as retribution because some stupid vampire didn’t understand that no meant no was not a good alternative. I was sure my mother would never know what happened to me, and that would be a much worse torture than the hurtful betrayal I had in mind. I sighed, feeling the weight of hurting someone I loved creeping over me.

  For weeks I had dreamed of seeing Jessie again. Then he returned to my life only to tell me that I was in danger and more than likely going to be killed. It wasn’t exactly what I’d had in mind when I had thought of seeing him again. My fantasies had drifted more toward passionate kissing and exchanging tender words as we pulled at the openings in each other’s clothing.