I understood now. “All right, Mom. I wouldn’t subject you to a life of being in constant withdrawal.”
“There’s even more to it than that. I’m a very emotional person—I think most werewolves (yes, shapeshifters too, I haven’t forgotten you) are, for there is a wild creature within us night and day, even on the other twenty-nine nights of the month. I know for a fact that my morality would crumble if it were that easy and that desirable to eat people. I’d rather keep the pain in this family than inflict grief on others.”
Her logic had no holes in it that I could see—which was a little disappointing. I had been half-hoping that she had faulty reasons that I could talk her out of, so that I could have a chance to have Mom with me all my life. Realizing now how selfish a wish that was, I picked a wilting rose and plucked off its bleeding petals. “That makes sense. It’s still massively unfair.” Mom opened her mouth and I quickly added, “Yes, yes, I know, life isn’t fair.”
“Remember the four family sayings, Dianne?”
I shredded one petal for every motto. “Number one: ‘It doesn’t matter if a man has fangs if he has manners. ‘Number two: ‘The stars shine for us.’ Number three: ‘Nothing is too frightening when somebody loves you.’ And the last one is: ‘If you don’t like it, then bite me. ‘ “
Mom clapped. “Excellent recitation. Now I think it’s time to add a fifth.”
“What’s the fifth?”
“‘Life isn’t fair, but you’d be surprised how often it’s bearable.’”
“Sometimes even pleasant?” I asked, tossing away the rose.
“Sometimes even pleasant. We’ll make it through whatever comes; don’t worry.”
“What about the mortgage?”
She looked pained. “We’ll figure that one out somehow. I think maybe. . .”
At that moment the doorbell rang, and both of us jumped up and ran back through the back door. Mom unwrapped herself and dropped the blanket onto the floor, sprinting after me. We made it a little race. I got there first and opened the door.
Nat Silver stood there, wearing a sweater, slacks, and shoes that looked like he’d owned them since the fifties. He was protecting himself from the 11:00 sun with a straw hat from the thirties or forties and a psychedelically colored umbrella that screamed sixties, along with the ubiquitous sunglasses. His little red Beetle car was parked next to our car, and his arms were burdened with a briefcase and a duffel bag. On the doorstep sat two immense suitcases.
“Um, excuse me?” I asked after recovering from the visual shock.
He sounded frantic. “Can I come in? The sun is going to take years off my life. And I’m getting a headache. They’re after me, you know.”
“We gave you an invitation before,” Mom said.
“Well, there’s no harm in some manners even when there’s no force field there, right? Just because I’m nearly a hundred years old doesn’t mean I can’t be polite.”
I had to smile at that. “Come on in, then, Nat. What’s the situation? Who’s coming after you?” He gratefully entered the relative darkness of the house, shed the hat and umbrella, and zipped towards the kitchen. Mom and I dragged his luggage into the foyer while he was taking bottles out of the refrigerator.
“I’d wait for your permission,” he apologized after chugging half a gallon of blood in thirty seconds flat, “but I’m starved. The deal is that I’ve lived for twenty years in the same apartment. My landlady was an old, nearly blind woman, so she never noticed that it was taking five or six times as long for me to age than it would for a normal person. Last week she died, and her son took over the house. I had to throw out all my suspicious drinkables because he inspects the rooms of all his tenants every other day. I think he must be obsessive-compulsive or something. Two days ago, he was looking through his mother’s photo albums, and there was a picture of me that was taken when I first moved in. He pretty much panicked after that, throwing holy water on me and ordering me to eat something in front of him to prove I was human. I did eat a sandwich, but I threw it up later and he found out. Last night he called the police, so I ran to my apartment, locked the door, and packed up all my stuff.” Nat paused for breath and another drink.
Mom sat down on one of the kitchen stools and folded her arms on the counter. I pulled up another stool next to her. Nat remained leaning against the wall, gulping fast enough for me to worry that he might hurt himself.
“So why come so late in the day?” Mom asked.
Nat wiped the blood off his chin and then licked his fingers. His outfit made him look like a redheaded, vampire version of Darrin from Bewitched. . . and with that thought I realized that I would never be able to watch that show again. “The police didn’t believe my landlord’s story of him having an undead tenant, but he sat in front of my door all morning, yelling at me to come out. I managed to slip away when he went to get some lunch. He thought I was asleep, you see. I snored pretty convincingly.”
“I suppose you’ve come here for sanctuary, then?”
He threw away the now-empty plastic gallon jug. “Actually, I have a more permanent proposition in mind. The time I made a house call I noticed that you had a large spare bedroom, and I was wondering if I could rent it, maybe indefinitely.”
I wondered if Mom was going to object, since such an idiosyncratic individual might drive us crazy after a while. Nat was fun and I liked him very much, but would my parents lose patience with his eccentric charm in a few months? However, Mom reached over and shook his hand. “I think we can arrange that.”
Overjoyed, Nat nearly shook Mom’s hand off and then kissed it. “Thank you so very much! Should we write up a contract of some sort, make it official? I’ll write it right now. I don’t hold with computers.”
Before Mom had time to answer he had run over to the chest in the living room where we kept our stationery and whipped out a piece of paper and a fountain pen. After a few minutes of scribbling he glided back and handed it to Mom. “I know my handwriting is abysmal, but the gist is that if you sign here you agree to provide me with the use of the spare room with a twelve-day warning before evicting me, which I hope you never do, use of your upstairs bathroom, TV, and all appliances. In return I will pay—see here,” he pointed at a set of numbers, “this much rent, charge the usual fee for any medical care that any of you require but provide it at any time you wish when I’m not at the clinic, and I will also keep Ferdin from brooding too much. I’ll get my own groceries, too, and reimburse you for what I just guzzled. We can go wake him up and use him as a witness.”
Mom nearly dropped the contract. “Dr. Silver, you can’t be serious about the rent. That’s more than my monthly salary!” She tried to return it.
“Wow, I knew our public schools were under-funded, but I didn’t know the pay was bad enough for you to be gaping at my fee.” He shook his head firmly and slid the sheet of paper back to her side of the kitchen counter. “The housing market has gone way up in the past two years, Selene (may I call you Selene? I forgot whether you said I could) and people are paying that much for a half-decent place.”
“But we’re nowhere near your office, Nat. You’ll only be getting one room. . . .”
“Ap-pap-pap! I won’t hear any more of this. This is my final offer.” He stepped over to me and put his hands on my shoulders. “I think I’ll be getting a lot more than a room. I’ll have the freedom to be myself, and more importantly, I’ll have you kids. Look, I haven’t got any family at all, and hardly any friends. I was hoping I could find a family in you three. You’re a very special trio, you know, and I want to help you out as much as I can. I don’t really have anything else to live for. My parents, siblings, and all are dead, and being a vampire with AIDS is killer on the love life.”
Mom and I chorused, “You have AIDS?”
He put his hand to his mouth. “Whoops. Heh. I didn’t mean to let that slip. I hope that doesn’t change anything?”
“Of course it doesn’t,” Mom said, “I was just sur
prised. You seem so. . . energetic.”
“I was getting up the guts to tell you the way a vampire with AIDS can be at full capacity, but I was afraid that it would be bad to let Ferdin know while he was angsting about you and might have done something desperate.”
“What’s the cure?” I asked urgently. If we couldn’t heal Mom, at least we could make Dad strong again.
“Don’t say anything for a moment, let me explain. First, you need to know that drinking animal blood makes a vampire more fragile than he or she would be on the standard diet. Can’t fight off several attackers at once, can’t climb walls, can’t do the cool turning-into-whirlwind thing that is so much fun. . . but I’m getting off the subject. Also, animal blood makes one vulnerable to illness. With human blood, however, you’re invincible to everything but garlic and bright light—which don’t kill, as you know, only incapacitate–stakes, starvation, and beheading.”
I got off the stool and backed away from him. “So you’ve been drinking human blood?”
He sighed and waved me back. “It’s not what you think. Just one glass every evening is enough to bolster your immunity. I just don’t throw away the blood samples I take. After the lab is done with them I take them home and put them in the fridge. Even if they have viruses in them it’s okay.”
Mom said, “Do you happen to have any of your needles on hand, then? You could give one set to us and I could give Andy a little of my blood every day.”
I interrupted vehemently. “No, no, and again, no. Mom, you’re going to be ill enough as it is, and you won’t be able to spare any. I’ll do it. Nat can teach me, right?”
“Oh, of course, sweetheart. You’ll need to have a second person helping you, but it’s simple enough. Sound good?”
Who’d have thought salvation could come in the form of an eclectic, mostly dead, blood-sucking amalgam of anachronisms? “How about being called ‘Uncle Nat’?” I asked.
Nat flashed his trademark flamboyant grin. “That’s the best thing I’ve been called all my life.”
We spent the rest of the day helping Nat unpack and move in. About three in the afternoon Dad woke up and was equally jubilant about our financial worries being solved. I privately thought he’d enjoy having a man to hang out with after being stuck with just Mom and me for so long as well. When he heard about the proposed solution to his sickness, he looked at me gravely.
“Are you sure you’ll be willing to do that for me, Di?”
“Dad, I’ll do anything that can help you.”
It was a day of hugs, really.
Yet the best was still to come, and didn’t arrive until that evening, after dinner. Nat was regaling us with tales of his unofficial service in the Vietnam War when he stowed away on a navy ship and on arrival went out every night and bit enough North Vietnamese soldiers to take out two regiments. “So I was a patriotic menace,” he said, “and unlike Agent Orange, I didn’t harm civilians.”
There was a knock on the door, and I jumped up. “I’ll get it.”
Matt was standing there with a bouquet of pink roses.
“Matt?”
“Hi, Dianne. Am I interrupting something?”
“No, I mean, yes, I mean, no, I mean, sort of, I mean. . .” My mouth had temporarily become disconnected to my brain. I took a deep breath and mentally recited the first ten digits of Pi. “No, you are not, I am very pleased to see you, and won’t you come in?”
He smiled and handed me the flowers. “To make up for what happened on Wednesday,” he said.
“You shouldn’t have. Really. They’re gorgeous, though.”
“So are you.”
“What?”
His smile broadened. “Nothing, nothing. I wanted to ask your dad something.” While I stood there, staring at the roses as if they had sprouted out of my fingers, he went and cautiously sat down on the couch across from Dad. Mom smiled and went off to the kitchen to make purposeful noises, while Nat looked back and forth from Matt and me and came to some sort of conclusion, and winked so much that he looked like he was having a seizure.
Dad removed his sunglasses and gazed at Matt quizzically. Under this scrutiny Matt fidgeted and coughed a few times before Dad had to ask, “Were you planning on saying something?”
“I was wondering if. . . well, I wanted to know. . . um. . . would it be okay with you if I went out with your daughter?”
The roses fell onto the floor in a heap. I nearly did the same.
Looking inscrutable, Dad said quietly, “I think that should be fine, if that’s what Dianne wants. But–” he stood up and leaned over Matt. “If you hurt her, I’ll bite you.”
“I think he’s joking,” whispered Nat.
Matt laughed nervously. “Right. Of course. I knew that. Who are you?”
“He’s our new tenant,” I told him, flapping my hands to indicate a vampire bat.
“Well, pleased to meet you then. I’m Matthew Spiralli.”
“I’m Nathan Silver. The pleasure is mine. I think you probably want some alone time with Dianne, yes?”
I tugged Matt’s arm. “Let’s go back to the playground.”
He took my hand as we walked down the sidewalk. “Are you okay with this? I just thought I’d clear your dad first. No offence but he’s kind of scary.”
“None taken. I’m more than okay with this. I’m just surprised.”
“Why?”
“It’s sort of a Handsome and the Beast deal. You really don’t mind?”
“Do I look like I do?” He stopped and drew closer to me.
I put my hand on his mouth. “Just one sec. If you’re going to do what I think you’re going to do, promise me not to act like a gyroscope.”
“A gyroscope?”
“No sticking anything in my mouth. I don’t want to get too excited—I might bite you by accident.”
“Agreed. We’ll take it easy. This your first time?”
“Yeah. Yours?”
“Same.”
“I hope we get it right.”
“We can practice.”
And then he kissed me. There were no fireworks or spectacular revelations. It was just warm, sweet, and comforting, a hot chocolate kiss rather than an intoxicating wine kiss. Which was just as well, considering our ages.
When we pulled away, I said, “Won’t your uncle be upset?”
“Meh, he tried to break up your parents and failed, and if he tries to break us up he will too. Besides, I can always threaten to poke him with a silver spoon. Is that redheaded guy really going to be living with you?”
“What can I say? My home life seems to be getting more interesting every day.”
I don’t know how long we were out there or how much we said. However, I do remember telling him that I had learned a lot more that day than just what kissing was like. For that day I figured out some vital truths about life. Life is stupid, but I’m smart. Life is unfair, but I know what’s right. Life is full of changes, but I can hold on to what’s important, stick together with the people I love.
Most of all, life bites—but I bite back.
About the Author
A half-Thai, half-American who has also lived in Laos and China, Donaya Haymond signed her first book publishing contract at eighteen. This followed a string of magazine and contest successes stretching back to when she was thirteen, incidentally the age when she began her Laconia series. “Donaya” is taken from the Pali Sanskrit word for “daughter”, pronounced “DAWN-ah-yah”, and it is “HAY-mond”, not “Hammond”
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Fanfiction, fanart, snark - all welcome.
Available now from Eternal Press
Halloween Romance
By Donaya Haymond
Your secrets aren’t as bad as you think. Selene believes Ferdinand would abandon her if he knew she was a were
wolf, something that isn’t supposed to exist. Ferdinand hides his vampirism from her for the same reasons, and must also hide from a world that thinks he’s evil. He’s just a melancholy English major who had a serious misadventure last summer. She’s just a college student with a bizarre family history. A comedy of secrets and a romance of accepting what makes us different.
“I have a condition that makes me, um, sensitive to strong light. My name is Ferdinand, by the way.”
“Ferdinand?” She had visions of German counts and friendly bulls.
He shrugged. “My roommates call me Ferdin and my mother says Ferdy, when she’s in a good mood.”
Selene couldn’t repress a giggle. “Ferdy doesn’t suit you at all, especially in that vampire get-up. What color are your eyes, really?”
He stared off into space for a moment, then said, “Blue...Your costume. What creature are you supposed to be?”
Selene grinned. “Nobody gets it on first try. I forgot all about the party until this morning, and didn’t have time to put a costume together, so I just came as a werewolf on the other twenty-nine nights of the month.”
“Clever!” he said, amused. “I’ve never seen such a good-looking werewolf in all my life.” “Are you flirting with me?”
“Aren’t vampires supposed to be oversexed?”
Available now from Eternal Press
A Bloody Good Cruise
by Diana Rubino
Romance author Mona is human. Ship’s doctor Fausto is a vampire. He can never be one of her kind and she’s afraid to become one of his. As they sail the Mediterranean on writers’ cruise, the couple is stalked by vampire hunters, and by Fausto’s notorious ex-wife, Lucrezia Borgia. Events force Mona and Fausto team up with the hunters to capture Lucrezia, but where can they go from here? With Fausto’s friend and Mona’s editor vamping it up and a hunter on the loose, can this bloody good cruise have a happy ending?
Bite Me Page 12
