by Sara Beaman
“Interesting,” he said. “Markus was another of my initiates. He passed away not long ago.”
“Aya turned him into a ghoul, didn’t she?”
Julian cast his eyes downward. “Adam, Markus did something very cruel to her.”
“Oh. I see.”
“I’d prefer not to speak further about it, if you don’t mind,” Julian said.
“I apologize.”
He shook his head. “You couldn’t have known.”
I didn’t know what to say. I stared into my glass, embarrassed.
“I will leave you now,” he said, and then he slipped out of the study.
The visits to Julian’s office always involved drinking blood from the amphora. It was always his blood. Every time I drank, I got that same initial rush of blissful pleasure, but it was always short. Next a wrecking ball of emotional agony would hit. For two or three minutes after swallowing the last drop, twenty-four hours’ worth of rage and grief would burn through my system. There was no way to hide how distraught I was. The best I could do was to ask Julian to leave the study, to give me some time alone. I only had to ask once; after that he knew when to leave.
At least he gave me that.
///
“What time is it?” I asked Aya as she pulled the door to Julian’s office closed on the third day.
“It’s a little after two A.M.,” she said, her eyes fixed on her shoes.
Normally at this time she’d chauffeur me back to the suite. The idea of returning there was enough to make me feel like killing myself again.
“Could we go outside?” I asked. “I’m starting to feel claustrophobic down here.”
“Of course! I’ll show you the grounds.” She gave me a bright smile full of white teeth.
We walked through the halls to a wide, sweeping staircase, larger at the base than at the top. In front of the highest stair were two doors inlaid with stained glass, each depicting an androgynous figure holding a goblet. The two figures faced each other, smiling.
Aya produced a key ring from a hidden pocket in the side seam of her skirt and unlocked the right-side door. Outside, the night air smelled of roses and fresh earth. We walked down a gravel path into a garden. Past the garden there was a pond, and beyond the pond rolling hills dotted with trees; beyond that, the trees thickened into a forest. The scenery was lush, even gorgeous, but something about it filled me with a troubling sense of déjà vu. After a moment, I realized why it was so familiar: I recalled it from Aya’s memory.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Aya said. “This is my favorite part of the estate.”
“We’re in Georgia, right? This doesn’t look like a plantation...” I scanned the horizon, looking for potential routes to the outside world. I couldn’t see any roads in any direction, only footpaths.
“It’s not. It’s modern. Master Julian has only lived in the South for about a century.”
I frowned. He’d said he was old. How old was he? How old was she?
“So how long have you been living here?” I asked.
She paused for a few moments, considering. “Twenty... no, twenty-five years now,” she said, a faraway look in her eyes.
“Working for Julian?”
“No. Well, not that entire time, anyway. When I first came here, I wasn’t in any condition to assist Master Julian with much of anything.”
My throat started to tighten. My eyes burned. For a moment, I thought I might cry. Why was I upset over this, of all things? A glance back at Aya answered my question: It wasn’t me who was upset, it was her. I was having some sympathetic reaction to her emotions.
“I didn’t mean to upset you,” I said.
She laughed. “No, no, it’s fine.” She stopped at a stone bench and sat down, crossing her legs at the ankles.
“Why do you work for him, anyway?”
“I owe him a debt of gratitude.”
“For what?”
“My line, the Line of Thalia, is different than yours. We have different abilities. One is the ability to assume false personae—to deceive others into believing we are someone we aren’t.” She looked up at the sky. “My real father—the man who initiated me—used our line’s powers to alter my mind. And he hired someone from your family—a renegade, I guess—to do something to my memories. It’s all still a mess, really. Thankfully the Wardens found me and brought me to Master Julian. He’s helped me through the worst of it.”
Maybe you can help me with the rest, I heard her think to herself as clearly as if she had spoken the words aloud. She bit her lower lip.
“I don’t know how to help you,” I said, regretting the fact.
“Oh God, I’m sorry. It’s not easy for me, I’m not used to dealing with telepaths—“
“You mean Julian’s not a telepath?”
“No.”
“Wait. So how can I...? I don’t understand.”
“Sometimes manifestations of the blood skip generations, so to speak.” She shrugged. “But honestly, I feel terrible. You’re so young. I should be helping you, not the other way around.”
“I’m thirty-eight.”
A patronizing smile flickered across her face.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “You don’t look any older than twenty.”
“Thank you,” she said, smoothing out her skirt.
“So how old is Julian?”
“He was born on the thirty-first of December in the year sixteen-hundred, so...”
“Are you serious? He’s three hundred and ninety two years old?”
“Three hundred and ninety-one,” she corrected me with a tiny, self-satisfied smile. “Wait, no, I’m mistaken. December thirty-first was the day he was initiated—he only celebrates it as his birthday. I imagine he’s some twenty-five years older than that.”
“Once you’ve passed the hundred-year mark, does it really matter anymore?”
She tilted her head to the side, shrugged. “You’d be surprised. He’s one of the youngest leaders of a sanguine house. His age is difficult for him at times.”
“Oh.” I couldn’t think of anything to say to that. “Okay.”
“I might be older than him, actually,” she admitted. “I can’t remember.”
///
When I got back to my quarters, I tried to sleep. Given what Julian had told me, I thought that perhaps I could dream something that would buy me my release. I didn’t know what he wanted me to discover; he hadn’t elaborated on that. I hoped I’d know it when I saw it.
I took a shower, shaved, brushed my teeth, turned off the lights, and climbed into the four-poster bed. I closed my eyes and lay still underneath the duvet cover. The sheets gradually grew cold as my body cooled to room temperature.
I listened to the clock ticking on the bedside table until the sound started to irritate me. I got up and put it inside the wardrobe, wrapping it inside a sweater. I got back into bed.
I told myself to relax and just sleep. I was awake for hours telling myself that: just relax and go to sleep.
It wasn’t working.
I’d had insomnia before. Whenever it was this bad I’d take sleeping pills. Would they do anything for me now? Could my dead body metabolize medicine? It seemed doubtful.
Two or three hours passed, than four or five more. I started to worry that, having fallen out of the practice, I’d somehow lost the ability to sleep.
Then I heard the phone ring.
I climbed out of bed and turned on the lights. I walked through the sitting room and into the office. A few seconds later, the answering machine picked up. “You’ve reached the office of Adam Fletcher,” it said in my own voice. “Please leave a message with your name and phone number at the tone.”
The tone sounded, and then another familiar voice began to speak.
“Whoever this is, we need to talk,” said Elena. “I don’t know how you got my phone number, but—“
I picked up the receiver. “Elena?”
“Who is this?” An accusatio
n, not a question.
“It’s Adam,” I said. “Adam Fletcher—“
“Adam Fletcher is dead. Adam Fletcher was dead when you called me three days ago. Who the hell are you?”
“I can explain—“
“Is this Jason?”
“No, Elena, look—calm down. He doesn’t have any idea how to get in touch with you. I don’t even think he knows who you are,” I said. “This is Adam. I swear.”
“That’s impossible.”
“I know that, but... I can prove it.” I was aware of how ridiculous I sounded.
“What do you mean you can prove it? You’re dead. He’s dead.”
“Ask me something.”
“This is ridiculous.”
“I’m serious. Ask me something.”
She was silent for a full minute.
“All right. You want to prove something? Tell me where Adam and I went on our first date.”
“We never went on a date, not unless you count...” I furrowed my eyebrows, thinking. “It’s a trick question. We never went on any dates.”
“Tell me the first place we went outside of school, then.”
I racked my memory for the answer.
“I met you at the hospital,” I finally replied. “In the waiting area of the cancer ward. I asked you a bunch of annoying questions about your research.”
She didn’t reply.
“I brought you a cup of coffee, but you don’t drink anything with caffeine,” I continued. “I didn’t know.”
She was still silent. I wondered if the line had gone dead.
“Elena?”
“I... I’m sorry, I don’t understand,” she said in a faint voice. “I need to go. Please don’t call me again.”
“Wait—“
I heard a dial tone.
11
Alterations
{Anonymous}
I wake up in the back seat, Adam sitting next to me. He has a bag of fast food in his hand.
“We stopped while you were still asleep,” he says. “I got you some food. Hope it hasn’t gone cold.”
I accept the bag from him and open it. A cheeseburger and fries. I pop a fry in my mouth; it’s cool but it’s salty and it tastes all right.
“We’re halfway to Kentucky,” he says as I unwrap the burger.
Great.
“Tara’s a potent healer. If anyone can help you, she can.”
I take a bite of the cold cheeseburger. That’ll be nice.
“I also got you some coffee,” he says, handing me a Styrofoam cup.
I give him a half-hearted smile.
He stares out the window as I eat. I finish about half of the burger and a third of the fries before I begin to feel overfull and a little carsick. I wrap the burger up in its foil and roll the top of the bag closed.
“Is that all you’re going to eat?”
I’m not hungry any more.
He frowns.
I put the bag on the floor of the car and take a long sip of coffee. What’s Julian like? The question pops in my head randomly, for no particular reason.
Adam considers.
“Erratic,” he says.
So you were initiated in 1992?
“Yes.”
Have you lived with him since then?
“No,” he says. “No, I moved to Atlanta a few months after my initiation.”
He looks out the window. I get the distinct sense that he doesn’t want to talk about this.
“It’ll be a while before we arrive,” he says. “If you’d like to try to recover another memory...”
I hug my knees in to my chest. After the last one, I don’t know if I want to see any more.
“They seem to be going in reverse order. If we want to find out anything about your personal life we might have to endure some more like the last.”
I sigh. I would like to know something about who I was. My name, something about my family, whether or not I was in a relationship... All right. I’ll try again.
“Now?”
Now is as good a time as any.
He nods and takes out his folding knife.
Does it hurt? I ask.
“It does. But not much.”
Our little ritual has already started to feel familiar. I don’t watch him make the cut; I don’t see it until he puts his wrist under my eyes. I bring it to my lips, knowing what to expect. His flesh is cool, as is his blood, and perhaps that makes it easier in a way, more businesslike.
I swallow. The floating sensation overtakes me, and I am subsumed in memory.
///
I am wearing a hospital gown, seated on a bare examination table in a harshly-lit room with green walls and a black tile floor. In front of me is a cart on casters, on top of which rests a tray full of surgical implements and a manila folder. The air is cold and nearly silent. I can hear, very faintly, footsteps approaching the single door to the examination room.
The door opens.
In walks a woman possessed of a preternatural level of physical beauty. Her skin is flawless, with no visible pores or blemishes, no errant hairs. Her features are completely symmetrical and perfectly in proportion. She is tall and slender, with an hourglass figure that flirts with the edge of human biological potential. She has strawberry blonde hair, wide blue eyes behind dark lashes, and radiant sun-kissed skin. Her smile reveals immaculate teeth.
“So you’re Ms. Radcliffe’s new assistant,” she says.
I smile at her reflexively—it’d seem impolite not to—but I have no idea what she’s talking about. “I, uh... sure,” I reply.
“Oh, that’s right. Sorry, it’s so weird dealing with her sometimes.” The woman sighs. “So, in any case, I’m here for your aesthetic consultation.”
“Yeah, uh, my what? I’m sorry...” I can’t remember signing up for anything like that, which makes me feel foolish and more than a little nervous.
“It’s quite all right. I’ll explain what we’re doing step by step. First of all, would you mind hopping onto the scale for me?” She gestures to an old-fashioned metal contraption near the door.
I slide down from the table, holding down the hem of my gown with both hands. I walk barefoot along the cold tile and step on the scale.
“You’re lucky. You’re just the right height. That must be why she selected you,” the woman remarks as she slides the indicators into position.
“The right height for what?”
“Hmm,” she says, looking at my weight. She takes a little pad of paper from the pocket of her lab coat and jots down a thought. “All right, you can step off now.”
I step back onto the floor.
She produces a measuring tape from her pocket. “Could you reach your arms out to the side, please?”
She wraps the tape around my right wrist, then my bicep, my neck, my breasts, waist, and hips. I recoil a little as she reaches between my legs to gauge the circumference of my inner thigh.
“Sorry, I should have warned you,” she says with a casual smile, then moves on to my calf, then my ankle.
“What do you need all these measurements for?”
“Oh. For your alterations.”
“You mean, like, tailoring?”
She smiles without showing her teeth.
“Next we’ll need to look at your face.” She puts the tape back in her pocket. “You can get back on the table now.”
I shake my head. “I think I’m gonna go.”
Her smile fades. She grabs for my wrist, but before she can catch me I bolt for the door. I throw the door open—
I am sitting on a bare examination table, wearing only a hospital gown. A woman in a white lab coat is standing before me. She is uncannily beautiful, seemingly flawless. I immediately find her appearance unsettling.
“Feeling better?” she asks.
“What?” I ask, disoriented. “I, uh... sure.”
“Let’s take a look at your face,” she says.
She pulls a metal cart on casters over to her s
ide, opens a manila folder and takes out an eight-by-ten photo of an attractive woman with auburn hair and hazel eyes. She posts the photo on the wall to the left side of my head, then pulls a felt- tip pen out of a tray of implements and takes off the cap.
“Don’t worry, this will all wash off,” she assures me.
She begins drawing lines on my face. Every so often she pauses, takes a step back to compare my face with that of the woman in the picture, then draws another line or two.
“What are you doing this for?” I ask.
She smiles without showing her teeth. “It’s best if you don’t worry about that.”
“I’m serious. What the hell is going on?”
“Keep your face still, please.”
I go silent, but out of the corner of my eye I’m looking towards the door. I wait for an opening. As she turns away for a moment, I wheel my feet around, throwing them up and over the metal cart. I jump off the examination table and kick the cart over, spraying surgical implements at her, then run for the door and throw it open—
I am lying on a cold, bare table, staring up at bare tubes of fluorescent light, naked except for a hospital gown. As I try to sit up, I realize to my alarm that my hands are cuffed to either side of the table. I lie back down. Where am I? I can’t remember.
A door opens; footsteps approach my side. A blonde woman in a white lab coat looms over me. She is uncannily beautiful, seemingly flawless. Her smile reveals immaculate teeth.
“Perhaps it’s best if we don’t talk much this time,” she says.
“What do you mean, ‘this time’?”
She produces a length of duct tape and brings it towards my face.
“Wait! What are you—“
She slaps the tape over my mouth and presses it flat with her slender fingers.
She reaches into a manila folder and pulls out a document. She assesses it silently, then pins it on the wall. She takes a felt-tip pen from the pocket of her lab coat and removes the cap, placing it between her teeth.
She reaches towards me and pulls my gown open with a single swift motion. I pull my legs up, clench them together, curl into the fetal position and try to turn my back to her, yelling wordlessly through the duct tape.
She holds the pen between her fingers like a cigarette. “Please lie flat on your back.”
