by Aiden James
I smiled. “You do expect common manners to be adhered to. Correct?”
“Ah, but what is polite to mankind could be deemed unnecessary, or even offensive, by the race of immortals!” he chided me, laughing at my expense while he threw his hands toward the doors. They flew open as if he carried a magic wand. “Ladies first—that is a rule for both the undead and those destined to be dust!”
Mean words delivered with a silver tongue and jester’s smile. At least he succeeded in getting me to snicker.
A party was indeed in full swing inside the dining hall. Balloons and streamers hung from the ceiling, and it seemed like more vampires joined the event tonight. Almost like a costume ball, although by then I understood that every waking moment for these vampires was an opportunity for fun and excess. A good number of the vamps were dressed as eighteenth-century French aristocracy. Garvan and Franz approached from across the room, dressed like something Central Casting would send out to a Goth-Rock music video shoot, complete with black capes and mirrored sunglasses with their hair spiked. Steel chains hung silently from black stiletto-heeled boots as they floated toward me through the air.
Unlike last night, they were both smiling. Not immediately seeing Racco anywhere in the room, I assumed they must’ve learned about the afternoon’s amorous disaster.
“You look ravishing, my chérie!” Garvan gushed, after he and Franz joined us.
By then, I was already looking toward the roasted fowl on the table, ready to be carved by one of the few warm-blooded human beings in the room. It didn’t matter if the bird was turkey, chicken, or some sort of local pheasant. I felt hungry enough to eat the very carving tray it sat upon.
“You two could pass for Linkin Park’s bodyguards,” I replied. “Do you guys party like this every night?”
“Who is ‘Linkin Park’?” asked Franz, his expression perplexed.
“A rock band, no?” offered Armando, his tone impish. “Next time they come to Paris you should join us at the Theater du Chatelet. We can hang out in the rafters, and maybe share a nice young boy before we leave!”
Franz’s expression turned serious, glancing at me while Garvan lowered his shades to glare at Armando.
“You two take everything so seriously!” sniffed Armando, in obvious mock contrition. “I will take my leave of you and visit Chanson.”
Before I could tell him that I wanted to come along, he was gone. Not even a blur. These guys and gals must have some sort of hyper-speed when they get really miffed.
“We do not party like this every night,” said Garvan, in response to my earlier question. “Yes, we try to have as much fun as possible, and parties are frequent. Part of what you have been treated to these past few days is our celebration of your continued safety. At some point, Gustav plans to taper off the constant pampering, so you are not overwhelmed. And, in truth, that will now happen sooner than expected. But, tonight… tonight will be one of our most festive events in recent years!”
“Why?” I asked, without thinking my full question through first. I didn’t like the way Garvan said ‘sooner than expected.’
It sounded a little ominous, as if something bad had happened, and that the original plan shared with me last night had changed. Chanson’s surreal angry face flashed before my mind, and I hoped I hadn’t pissed off the vampires beyond an apologetic repair.
“The answer to your question will be given soon,” a mellow voice to my right suddenly announced. I nearly jumped since it sounded so close to my ear, like an abrupt boom that faded to a whisper. When I turned my head, Gustav stood beside me, dressed in another papal robe and cap, only the dominant colors were gold and a deep, rich purple. “But first, you must nourish yourself. Come, join me at the table.”
He held out his hand for me to take, and I was surprised when his hand felt warm. I noticed then that his alabaster complexion seemed more blushed than the previous night. I also saw that his fingernails were longer, with predatory tips sharpened to keen edges. A slight golden glow emanated from his eyes. The king of vampires had either recently fed, or some other fiery force energized him to where he stood out even more against his peers than the previous night.
As before, he motioned for me to join him next to his throne, motioning to the servant girl standing next to the roasted bird to cut me a serving and bring it up to where I sat. Another glance around the room revealed Chanson, Raquel, and Nora had moved to a corner with Armando. Dressed in exotic flamenco style, they were engaged in an animated discussion. I assumed it was serious until I heard Armando’s uproarious laughter while the female trio smiled at what he told them.
Still, there was no sign of Racco, and I began to worry for his welfare.
“Perhaps you would like merlot again tonight, or do you have another preference?” asked Gustav, his tone laced with compassion.
“Actually, maybe a lighter wine would be better,” I said, thinking that Racco had a preference for merlot and I would undoubtedly think of him every time a sip passed through my lips. “Do you have something simple, like maybe zinfandel?”
“I believe so. Mercel?”
Racco’s trusted assistant appeared, stepping around a bar nearby. I hadn’t noticed his presence, but seeing him now made me feel better about Racco’s absence. Maybe things would be okay after all, for both of us. At least that’s what I took from Mercel’s warm smile and carefree gait as he approached the table.
“A glass of the finest zinfandel for the lady in honor,” said Gustav.
“Yes, I shall pour her a glass and bring it over.”
He bowed to us both and hurried back to the bar. He returned a moment later.
“Would you enjoy a salad with your dinner?” Gustav asked me, after waving off Mercel’s offer to prepare an RH negative cocktail for him, apparently his usual preference.
“No, I’m fine,” I said, between bites of what I assumed was chicken. Either that or the biggest Cornish hen I’d ever seen. It was excellent, as was the wine. “This is quite good.”
“Excellent!” he beamed.
He turned his attention to the party around us while I ate. As the night before, the vampires feasted on blood at room temperature from several vats nearby and an extra two punchbowls on the table. I caught Chanson studying me from her corner of the room, wearing a slight smile on her face. I assumed she might suddenly appear before me. But for the time being she remained where she was, and soon returned to her conversation with Raquel and Nora. Armando had disappeared, and when I looked over at Garvan and Franz, who had joined a group of females dressed in early Renaissance Italian attire, he wasn’t with them either.
Perhaps to distract me from my Racco quest, Gustav engaged me in conversation. I thought it might be painful, given my initial impressions of him the night before. I was pleasantly surprised to find that it wasn’t. We talked about my aborted studies in America and what life was like growing up in Virginia. It wasn’t until he signaled to the rest of the room that he had an important announcement to make, I realized he had expertly gotten me to talk about myself, and yet, revealed nothing about himself. I couldn’t decide if that was a good thing, or not.
The room grew quiet as Gustav rose from his throne. At the moment, he was the only one floating, as the others either gathered in small groups or taken seats at the table. I wondered if the groups represented some sort of geographical separation. I doubted seriously that all of them originated from France, or even resided here on a full-time basis. Hearing the variety of dialects and accents around me during the past two nights supported this notion.
Racco stood just inside the doorway, dressed in the same Body Armor, I assumed, and wearing a casual beige dress coat and jeans. But, either he didn’t see me, or he chose not to acknowledge my presence next to the throne. I wanted to go to him and say something, to find some way to reconnect. However, Gustav had already begun to address his flock.
“My brothers and sisters, compatriots of the dark gift we’ve shared freely for so many
centuries. As you all know, our way of life—the manner in which we have ruled this continent and the very world—is now threatened in ways unseen for a very long time.”
I tried to take it all in, and to do so seriously, praying to God that my irreverent thoughts would somehow go undetected by the undead throng gathered around me. I definitely didn’t want Gustav to gain any telepathic inkling as to what I thought about the grandiose manner in which he addressed the crowd of vampires gathered in the dining hall. Hell, if his flamboyant cap had covered his eyes, it would seem as if the Ku Klux Klan’s Grand Dragon spoke instead. That thought brought a wry smile to my face, which I’m sure someone would’ve noticed.
But, he continued on undeterred. I caught most of what he said, and the important thing was that the castle would soon be under siege. When he mentioned the name ‘Ralu’ though, I went from an irreverent observer to fully engaged believer. He had my rapt attention from that point forward.
“So, Ralu is the one behind the uprisings taking place throughout Europe?”
The question was posed by a stately gentleman sitting in a chair near where Racco stood. Undoubtedly an older vampire, and one turned to darkness later in life, his long white hair and youthful features reminded me of Nora. The entire room turned to look in his direction until Gustav answered him.
“Yes, Kazikli, it is him,” confirmed Gustav, his tone solemn. “He has reassembled an army in the old country—your and my former home. A new version of diavolului respinge has risen from the depths of the earth, where we sent them to live out their miserable existence almost three hundred years ago.”
“But, how can the devil’s rejects become formidable so quickly?” asked another vampire, this one much younger. From the disdainful looks from several others near him, it appeared he wasn’t held in high esteem.
“They have figured out how to proliferate,” Gustav replied, and the underlying tone seemed benevolent—different than I would’ve expected, given my intuitions about him. My volleying respect jumped back up a notch. “It is no longer an intelligent Ralu leading a bunch of imbeciles. They are no longer far beneath us… they have learned to procure the living for food and to build their numbers. They now easily assimilate knowledge, where they once were half-wits easily routed by farmers armed with clubs and pitchforks. They no longer make the same mistakes twice.”
He grew quiet, and then glided through the air until he reached the middle of the room. Still hovering above the table, all eyes remained upon him, all of us waiting expectantly for him to continue.
“Their army now exceeds thirty-two thousand,” he said, once ready to speak again. “Most are here in Europe, although as you shall see in a moment, their presence is known throughout the world. As a result, we are all in danger—them and us. The world’s powers have turned a deaf ear to my voice, and will seek to destroy us all unless Ralu is stopped.”
“How can we do that if he has amassed an army as intelligent as you claim?” said the vampire Kazikli, rising to his feet. Definitely the most regal vamp that night in terms of dress, he tapped his gold-tipped cane on the floor, sending forth streams of purple plasma light from the point of impact. “We number only four-hundred and seventy-eight—nearly half of whom are gathered here tonight! They will cut us down like wounded flies if we chase them through the chasms, and might not fare any better if we await their attack at your ‘le château de douleur!’”
The vampire glared in anger at his king, although the way these two conversed made it obvious to me that they had been colleagues in the blood drinking biz for many centuries.
“I know Ralu better than any of you,” said Gustav, finally, after nearly a minute spent in thoughtful silence. “If we perform the ceremony, the relance de sang, before his Romanian army storms the castle, he will retreat. He wants the gift, just as we do, if for no other reason than to keep us from using it.”
“None of us want to perish, oh King,” said a woman in the back, who turned out to be Nora once she stood. “What must we do?”
Could she have been any more obvious in her set up for Gustav to close the deal here?
“All of you need to remain here in support, and do whatever it takes to hold his army out of the castle’s passages,” he said, and the confident smile on his face reeked of a Tony Robbins breakthrough. “We must hold them out until Txema conceives a child.”
Huh?
They all looked at me—whether vampire, slicing-meat servant girl, bartender, or lord of the manor. I could feel self-conscious heat rush to my face, but I also felt indignant. I wanted to tell them that in addition to the fact I wasn’t about to be some frigging surrogate mom for whatever bloodlust ceremony they’d concoct, I couldn’t do it. Not even if I wanted to.
I hated the way Gustav studied me—obviously reading my thoughts and then smiling anyway. He nodded his head, as if he not only read the words, but also heard the panicked voice shouting defiantly in my head.
“Look, Txema, at the television… see what is happening right now around the world!”
He pointed a remote control toward the wall behind me, where two dark curtains separated to reveal what resembled a jumbo-tron from a sports auditorium. The screen took up the entire wall on that side of the room—more than a hundred feet wide and roughly forty feet tall.
“We will start in your country, America,” he said. “Here is the latest update from CNN.”
Immediately, a blonde newswoman appeared on the screen, with a ‘Mysterious Mauling Deaths’ headline behind her.
“… crisis which began last week has continued to grow. More than forty deaths have now been attributed to this so-called chupacabra phenomenon. Government officials report that a particularly virulent strain of rabies is to blame and urge citizens to stay indoors whenever possible—”
The sound suddenly cut out and I looked back from the screen where the woman’s lips continued to move. Text of her words appeared in white on a black bar at the bottom of the screen.
“To save time, I can assure you that similar violence against your fellow humans is taking place from Shanghai to Moscow, and from London to Milan,” said Gustav.
He either read my mind, or more likely, my face alone displayed my skepticism as he pointed the remote again toward the screen. “So be it. Here is tonight’s report from Paris, detailing attacks from early this morning near Perpignan.”
He changed the format to allow for an English translation to appear at the bottom of the screen. Then again, the graphic description of what happened to the nine victims might’ve sat better with my churning stomach if had I only been able to understand the occasional word delivered in the newscaster’s native French. Sensing that I had seen enough, Gustav turned off the giant TV.
“You can stop all of this, Txema,” he said. He released a deep and drawn-out sigh before continuing. “Ralu will only stop his aggression once he knows you are with child. You are fully aware that he has access to your thoughts as well as your location. If you do not agree to help us, we may not be able to save you from him. We can only run for so long before he will track us down.”
An icy chill raced down my spine as he said this… nearly the same exact words Ralu uttered to me, in my dreams of him. Still, how in the hell could I become pregnant? The vampires possessed some pretty amazing powers, but I sincerely doubted creating a miraculous birth was one of them.
“Why would he care if I was pregnant? Let’s be honest here, this murdering asshole doesn’t exactly seem the type to care if a woman is pregnant? In fact, he might get off on it.” I shuddered as I imagined those razor talons of his slicing my swollen belly and pulling a baby from me.
Gustav pursed his lips as he pulled that thought from my mind.
“That won’t happen, Txema. I swear it on my life. This is not the first time he has attempted this gambit. When the last lover is with child he must admit failure. He must relent. It is our way.” There was a general murmur of assent.
“I wish I could help you,�
� I said, sort of true—mostly not. “But I can’t get pregnant. I had some difficulties with my first periods and my mom took me to the doctor. They thought it might be because of my athletics or something, but my periods are just not right. I don’t pass the egg along.” I shrugged to add an unspoken ‘wish I could help you, but I can’t.’
“I had the same condition,” said a voice from the back of the room. Suddenly, Chanson transported herself to the right side of Gustav. She bowed, and the edge of her cream flamenco dress nearly dipped into a blood-filled punch bowl.
“We all have the same condition, Txema—all of us who bear the birthmark. When relance de sang is performed, you will become fertile for a short window of time. An egg will be released into your womb, ready to be fertilized.”
Her smile had a warmth that made me feel better about what happened earlier that day. However, I remained unconvinced my infertile womb could suddenly become whole again—even for the moment she described.
“Trust me, Txema. The ceremony was once used with me—almost three hundred years ago when I was still human,” she added, and in the next instant, she stood next to me. Yeah, that freaked me out—it probably always would.
“It is the only way to save our kind—your kind. You may not ever choose to be a vampire, but this is something you can do that serves both vampires and the human race. Our collective survival is dependent on what you choose.”
Her tone was extremely soothing. I wondered if she was trying to ‘glamour’ me, like I once saw the vampires in True Blood do to people they sought to control.
“How does it happen?” I asked, wishing badly that there was some other way to fix their problem. I believe it was one of the few times I hated having the damned birthmark. The first time since my sophomore year in high school, when two bitches teased me on picture day and I ended up frowning for the photographer. The marks are hardly noticeable in that picture, but the unflattering scowl on my face remained.
“A vampire must drink your blood while you copulate with a human male,” Garvan said.
