I’d almost forgotten what being around my kind was like. More so, those of my kind that didn’t live like I used to. “I had a moral dilemma in the feeding department,” I explained shortly.
I expected him to scoff at me, but instead he gave me a solemn look like he understood and respected me. “It is immoral to take without consent. It sullies the gift of blood. I am pleased an outsider also understands this. But you are old. The young have never been without as we have.” He gave me that smile. The smile that spoke of years and cultures long past. It was a sweet secret the oldest of our kind shared. We were suddenly at the hospital entrance, and he held the door open for me.
A limousine sat in the parking lot right in front of the entrance. Several humans stood around it, guarding its occupant. Wait. Were they humans? They didn’t smell quite like humans. One opened the limo door and their master stepped out of the vehicle as soon as we were close. He was tall with long white blonde hair and wearing an expensive suit that probably costed as much as the limo. He looked young, about sixteen, but I could sense his age was older than Othello. This Born was the leader of this town.
“So,” he said when we were in front of him. “You’re the one who broke into the hospital.” He was well informed, considering it had only been five minutes, ten at the latest, since Ahmed had found me. “The nurses were very concerned for you as you were so close to a frenzy.”
“You spoke with them?” I asked him.
He looked me over like he was studying me in a non-objective way. Which was nice considering he looked like he had barely left puberty. “We don’t often get visitors, much less one of our kind.”
“I didn’t plan on running into a den of vampires. If I hadn’t been so hungry, I would’ve smelled you and stayed away.” That low on blood, the only thing I could smell was what I needed most: humans.
“My name is James,” he said as if I hadn’t spoken. I had a slight feeling that he wasn’t listening to anything I said, but I introduced myself anyway. He didn’t react, again, and said to Ahmed, “Give her a room at the inn.” He looked back at me. “I’ll check in on you soon. I have business to attend to.” His strange guards got into the limousine after him, then it pulled smoothly out of the parking lot and was gone with barely a crunch on the pavement.
“He’s, uh….” I searched for a word that was more flattering than ‘odd’. Thankfully, Ahmed had a sense of humor and was already chuckling at me.
“I know. Not many of us are as old as James is. I suppose it’s just his age.”
I had a feeling it was more than that, but I held my tongue. Ahmed forwent a car, so we walked down the streets of James’s city. It felt good to stretch my legs. It also felt foreign, being exposed like this, but I tried to forget about the past few months and just enjoyed my surroundings.
Every tree downtown was decorated with Christmas lights, as well as the edges of some of the buildings. It wasn’t December; the decor was just something the humans enjoyed, Ahmed explained. I suppose so much light made them feel safer around so many vampires. Every street we walked in, our kind was intermixed with the humans. When we stopped at a park, Born were eating ice cream with humans, walking dogs with humans, some were even playing games with humans.
“You find it odd,” Ahmed said after I’d been staring silently at the crowd in front of me. I nodded, no words coming to me. “We live in harmony here. There is no need to hide from them. They give us what we need – blood - and we protect them. There is only one rule. We do not turn them. Under any circumstance.”
Then I realized that every vampire I’d seen was Born. None of the turned were among the masses. “Why?” I asked him. “Why don’t you turn them?”
“Humans don’t understand what it means to be a vampire. They think it means strength, power, and to be above humans. Better than humans. We are not better than anyone. Not humans. Not the Lycans. We are equals. We just…don’t break as easily.”
I chuckled at him. “A philosophy I’m used to living by.” The only thing I didn’t see was Born and human couples, which was comforting, and made the oddness of the city slightly less odd. “The turned also don’t listen. They’re almost impossible to teach.”
“Born have the ability to change and adapt. Humans are frozen in time when they drink our blood,” he said back. It wasn’t that I disagreed with him. I just always had the hope that that wasn’t true. “Here we are, the hotel.”
We’d reached the end of a city block and were standing in front of what was once a firehouse. It was now a small inn with two large wooden doors where the garage door used to be. Ahmed knocked once on the left door before it swung open revealing the proprietor, a plus sized human woman with a kind smile and pink tipped braids. I almost envied her curves, since I was a beanpole, but I’d never felt inadequate in any area of my life. Well. Almost never. She smiled at Ahmed, and shifted her eyes to me. Her eyes scanned me and I felt something coming from her, a power that was rare among humans.
“You’re a seer,” I stated.
She laughed, making her jewelry jingle around. “That’s an outdated word, but I’ll take it. And yes. I am.” Ahmed shifted his feet a few times before nodding his head to the human and walking back in the direction we came from. The female watched him go, her eyes turning to slits and a smile creeping on her face. When Ahmed turned from our sight, she looked back at me. “Doesn’t like humans, that one. Likes his nurses well enough, but he feeds from them. Ironic that we humans trust our health to a vampire that doesn’t like us.” She stopped talking and stood in the doorway for a minute. “Coming in?”
“I have to be invited.”
She raised her eyebrows at me. “Really? I’ve never heard that.”
“No, not really. I’m just messing with you.” I flashed my fangs at her in a smile, and walked past the doorway into the hotel lobby. I caught her staring at me in a mirror, half un-amused half trying not to laugh. The lobby was clean and organized, if a little on the hippie side with the décor. Artwork covered the walls. Birds, clouds, trees, fire, and more, all beautifully painted. The human stood nearby while I surveyed the room, then gave me a look when I turned back to her that led me to believe these were her paintings. “They’re lovely,” I said with a smile. It wasn’t lying, her work was really something. I’d never studied art seriously, but you pick up on a few things after decades of art enthusiasts peppering the walls of your house with paintings.
She relaxed a little. “Thanks. Means a lot coming from a vampire. An old one, I mean. I bet you knew all the old masters. Rembrandt, Monet, Van Gogh,” she said with a sigh, pronouncing Van Gogh’s name wrong. She’d also known I was old without asking.
“It’s pronounced Goff,” I corrected.
She pointed a finger at me. “Ha! So, you knew him? Was that ear cut off for you?”
“He was a chubby chaser, so, no.”
She laughed loudly, slapping her leg a few times, and reached up to wipe her eyes when she’d calmed down. “Van Goff, a chubby chaser. I like you.” She sniffed and chuckled softly. “I’m Sara, the town weirdo.”
I smiled at her. “A town is only as weird as the town weirdo.”
She ran her hands down her sides. “I’m also lusciously curved. I can tell you noticed. Don’t fib.” I tried to come up with an excuse, but she waved her hand at me and giggled. “I’m just teasing. Curves are normal. You’re a skinny thing, if you don’t mind my saying. I’ve never seen anyone as skinny as you are. Do you eat enough?” I looked down and saw how loose my peasant blouse had become. When I’d bought it, it had fit me perfectly. I did look a little malnourished. “Stop, stop,” she said suddenly, grabbing my wrists. “No need to be upset. You’ve always been skinny, right? We just need to fatten you up. I’ll have a human here pronto that you can drink from.”
“Thank you, but I’m full.” I also had a stomachache, oddly enough. Did my breath smell?
“Alright, alright. If you say so.” Sara tugged on one of her short pink tippe
d braids while she maneuvered behind her large hotel type desk and fiddled with something underneath it. When she straightened up, she produced two large white towels. “These are so super fluffy, you could sleep on them.” She handed them to me and walked over to the staircase. “Right this way.” I followed her up, her hips moving from side to side in front of me. She turned to the left when we reached the landing and inserted a brass skeleton key into a door marked ‘1’. I was the only guest here, it seemed. She pushed the door open and held the key out to me. “A human will be in the lobby when you wake up, and I’ll have food ready after you’ve fed. I’m thinking curry. You like spicy?”
“Curry for breakfast?”
“So that’s a no. Okay. French toast waffles it is.” She wiggled her fingers at me and went back down the stairs.
For a town weirdo, she was kind of normal.
Chapter 13
Despite the ridiculously comfortable bed, I didn’t sleep well that night. My dreams were a mix of can-can dancers in Paris and being up against someone’s warm chest. When I woke up, I half expected to find someone in bed with me, but my Bohemian-Gypsy-esque room was empty except for me. Sara was very committed to the design of the room, down to very minute details, and I could tell she’d gotten the help of a vampire to make it historically accurate. The small bathroom attached to my room had a Steampunk theme, including a huge copper-colored claw foot bathtub. I managed to figure out the mechanics (and I mean mechanics literally) so I could take a bath. My skin was pale white again, but since I was in a town filled with my kind, I didn’t need any tanning lotion.
After I cleaned up, I went downstairs and found a human male waiting for me on a red velvet couch. He introduced himself, Robert, and promptly left after I’d fed from him. As soon as he was gone, Sara waltzed in carrying a bowl of batter. Her hair was up in a scarf and she was wearing a loosely tied cocktail apron over a pajama top and pants with Tweety bird on them.
“Hey there, gorgeous! Ready for waffles?” I stood up and followed her to the small kitchen she’d come out of. There was a small table with two chairs in a 1950’s style kitchen, complete with an avocado fridge. I sat down and Sara plunked a plate in front of me with three French toast waffles on it.
“This might be too much foo-”
“Nope. No arguments, missy. You’ll eat it all and like it. Gotta fatten you up again. Can’t have you sickly.” Why did it matter to her if I stayed sickly? She finished cooking and sat down after removing her apron. Her pajama top rid up slightly, revealing stretch marks. The kind of stretch marks caused by being pregnant. She caught me staring so I looked back at my plate and started eating. “Nathan.”
“What?”
“That’s my son’s name. But he goes by his middle name now.”
“I didn’t realize you’re a mom.” I hadn’t seen toys around the hotel, nor heard anything during the night like a crying baby or a child asking for a glass of water.
“He’s twenty,” she said, like it wasn’t weird.
I choked on my bite of French toast waffle. “You have a twenty-year-old son? You’re so…”
“Young? Yeah. I was fifteen when I had him. His father was…dashing.” She smiled, a hazed look on her face. She cleared her throat and picked at her waffle. “Nathan works for his father.”
I pointed to the vacant spaces around the table. “Only two chairs.”
“No one ever comes here, except for two people,” she said quietly. “And they never come at the same time.”
I wondered why James had told Ahmed to bring me to an inn that never had customers. “Well. You have someone here now,” I said brightly. She smiled back at me.
The day went quietly until mid-afternoon. We were eating a late lunch (eggs and kimchi) when there was a knock at the door. Sara, not looking the least bit surprised, left the kitchen and came back with an envelope and a large white gift box. She slid the box onto the table by my plate, handed me the envelope, and sat back down to finish her kimchi, a blank look on her face. I picked up the envelope and stole a glance at her but she was staring off into space, so I slid the seal open.
James was requesting my presence for dinner at his house tonight.
The box revealed a dress that designers dream about and rich women drool over. Light brown satin with black lace on the bodice and edges, and an angled overskirt that went from knee to floor. Sara did a double take when she saw it and almost dropped her drink. Beside the dress was a small matching clutch, and shoes that made me want to cry. Designer clothes. I’ve missed you, my darlings. For one night, at least, I could put aside my Bohemian hippie clothes and dress like I used to.
Sara got up, quickly washed our dishes, and disappeared.
I went upstairs and bathed again, then I put on makeup, did my hair, and then redid my hair a few more times before I was satisfied. By the time I was dressed and ready, I could hear a limo pull up outside. I went downstairs, sighing with happiness at the feel of heels, not to mention how much I loved this dress. Sara wasn’t there to send me off.
One of the strange human bodyguards was standing by the limo door, waiting for me to get in. His scent was almost human, but looking at him, all I could think was that he wasn’t human. It was like the feeling I’d gotten around Knight. I shook my head slightly to banish the thought of him, and got into the limousine. It smelled like pink champagne.
When we reached James’s home, correction: mansion, he wasn’t there to greet me. I was led inside by my escort and guided to a sitting room. James sat in a large armchair with a small antique dining table set for two in front of him. A dainty boudoir chair was on the other side of the table, and it was almost too small even for me. He smiled when he saw me in the doorway.
“Elisabeth, please come in,” he said, gesturing to the chair across from him. How did he know my full name? I sat, feeling slightly uncomfortable at being given such a small chair. Display of power? Most likely. “How are you liking the inn?” he asked, giving no indication he thought it was a bad establishment.
“It’s good,” I answered. “Sara is very kind. And she can really decorate.”
James smiled, for the first time showing warmth. “Most people find her odd. I’m glad you do not.” As if summoned silently, several humans came in bringing the first course: cucumber soup. “I wasn’t sure which eras you preferred as far as cuisine is concerned, so I just went with some traditional favorites.”
We ate, sometimes talking and appreciating shared experiences from the past, but mostly just enjoying the food. The main course was roast peacock, and the platter was decorated with several feathers, as well as the bird’s head. I wrinkled my nose at it and James had it taken away with a snap of his fingers. Dessert came, an exotic chocolate dish, and he relaxed in his chair after finishing his.
“That was delightful,” he said with a relaxed smile on his face. “Do you need to drink?” I shook my head. “I may after you leave. I usually do after I partake of food.”
My brain didn’t quite process that. “You drink more than once a day?”
He brushed his hand over his pant leg, even though it was spotless. “I drink as often as I feel like it.”
“That causes instability.” I’d lived long enough to know that. It would explain James’s odd behavior.
“It also causes powers. This you know.”
I shifted my legs under the table. “I’m well aware.”
“I can read minds. I can bend humans to my will. I can control our kind.” He gave me a pointed look. “Including you.”
“Well,” I said quickly, tossing my cloth napkin onto the table and standing up. “This was a lovely meal, and I thank you for-” James interrupted me, uttering a single word.
“Sit.”
My legs suddenly clenched and the only thing I wanted to do was sit back down.
I didn’t.
His lips pursed at me and his eyes focused sternly on my face. “I said, sit.” My muscles began to burn, like I’d been standing for day
s. I craved the sweet release sitting would give me.
I still didn’t.
This time James squinted, studying me, and a slow grin spread onto his face. “I should’ve known, given your age. There’s only one way to make you submit.” No. He couldn't mean... He stood and with lightning speed approached me, and grabbed me by the neck.
Then he bit me.
Chapter 14
I rubbed my neck in the limo on the way back to Sara’s inn.
Once he’d bitten me, I thought he would humiliate me by forcing me to sit as he had first commanded, but he merely stroked my neck and told me to go back to the hotel. He wasn't interested in humiliation, which was nice. He just wanted to control me.
Sara was lounging on a fainting couch in the lobby when I arrived, chewing on pieces of melon and reading a Japanese newspaper upside down. She glanced up at me briefly and went back to the paper. I could feel her disapproval, but of what I had no idea. Then suddenly, she looked back at me with a horrified expression and jumped up, tossing the paper away.
“He bit you,” she stated, her face shocked. I reached a hand up to cover my neck. “He forced his will on you.” She put a hand on mine and gave me a comforting look, like James had forced himself on me, instead of just biting me. Now that I thought about it, I wasn’t sure how those two options differed.
Then the air changed. We both tensed, though I didn’t know if Sara felt what I was feeling. It wasn’t a smell, more like my ears had randomly tuned into something happening outside.
“He’s here,” she whispered.
I turned around and went back to the front door. Sara joined me, pulling on some shoes that looked like they’d come from Aladdin’s closet. I expected to see James standing there, ready for round two of whatever he thought our evening had been, but that wasn’t what greeted me.
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