by Donna Ansari
After about fifteen minutes of rigorous standing around, I saw a familiar figure walk past me out the door.
“Ethan!” I yelled, grabbing for his arm. Lacking my previous vampire speed, I missed him completely and grabbed at the air, but he heard me and swiveled around to face me nevertheless.
The look of shock on his face was immediate. “Emma! Is that you? What happened?”
“I’m not totally sure,” I said. “Can we go somewhere and talk?”
He took out his phone and glanced at it. “I guess I have a few minutes.”
“Thanks,” I said. “Is there anywhere around here we can go?”
“Yeah.” He took off across the street and we entered a Starbucks.
Ethan stood in front of me on line. He was facing forward, which made it hard to ask him about anything. I couldn’t help but notice that the insulted lunchbox, the one he had always used to carry bags of blood to me, was slung over his shoulder.
Finally we had both paid and were waiting for our coffee, and he had no excuse to avoid looking at me.
“So, how have you been?” I asked.
“Fine. And you?”
“Recently human.” I accepted my coffee from the barista, and we walked further back into the store, to sit on stools at the window.
“Yeah, I noticed. So how did that happen?”
“I’m still trying to figure that out,” I said. Then, remembering the reason he claimed to be staying in New Jersey, and asked, “How is your grandmother?”
“My grandmother?” Ethan frowned and then said, “Oh, she’s doing much better. Thanks for asking.”
We were silent for a few moments as we both sipped our coffee. Finally, I couldn’t ignore the second rather large elephant in the room, and asked, “When did you move out?”
“A little while ago.” It seemed like he was deliberately not looking at me, despite my no longer being capable of hypnotizing him.
I waited an appropriate amount of time for him to continue, but when he didn’t, I asked, “Why?”
“It’s hard to live with someone once you realize that they’re just using you.”
Although it was deserved, his answer hit me like a punch to the gut. I was about to apologize when I realized something. “And you’re not being used for blood now?”
“No, I’m not being used. I have an agreement.”
“What kind of agreement?”
“Why are you putting me through the third degree? You must already know what’s going on.”
“What do you mean? What’s going on? I don’t know anything!” I protested.
Ethan looked confused. “Really? You have no idea?”
“No,” I sighed. “In fact, it’s almost like I never have any idea what’s really going on.”
“Okay, look, I have something to confess,” he said. “The first night I met you, I knew exactly what I was doing.”
“Which was what?”
“I knew I was in a vampire club, and I knew you were a vampire.”
“Oh.”
He continued, “I was there because I was looking to become a blood doll, and I was hoping to find a female vampire. In almost a year, you were the first one I saw in the city.”
By then, I was extra confused. “You wanted to be a blood doll on purpose? Why?”
“In part, because getting bitten by a vampire is pleasurable, but of course that’s not the main reason.”
“And the main reason would be?”
“Because I want to become a vampire.”
I sat back on the stool, almost falling off of it. “Why would you want to be a vampire?”
He looked at me incredulously for a second, before saying, “Eternal life, powers, the whole package. I can’t believe you would stop wanting to become a vampire.”
“I already told you, I don’t know how this happened, but it wasn’t intentional. It’s not like I could just wake up one night and say, ‘Oh, I’m sick of drinking blood—I think I’ll go back to being human now’,” I said. “Anyway, what I’m asking is not what’s cool about being a vampire, but why you want to become one.”
“Okay, that’s a fair question, I guess,” he said. “Well, being a nurse working in an emergency room, I spend a lot of time around people who are dying. It makes you realize that anyone could die at any minute, and how little a person’s life is worth. Today they just brought in an entire family who had been in a car crash—the mom, dad, two kids, all dead within minutes. Is that what life is supposed to be like? How do their deaths have any meaning?”
I gulped, knowing I had told him my own parents had both died in a car accident, which had happened soon after I graduated from college. “I don’t know,” I said. “But, Ethan, you know not all blood dolls become vampires. Most are killed after a few years.”
“Yes, I do know that, which is why I left you.”
“What? How do you figure that you’re in any better a situation now?”
“You had already said you would not turn me. And despite your boyfriend being the second in charge of New York City, you don’t seem to be very well connected or regarded in vampire society. With you, I thought my chances of becoming a vampire were maybe five percent at best. But with a well-connected and well-regarded vampire, my chances rose to about thirty percent.”
I shook my head. “I would never have killed you. I would have found a way.”
“Maybe you wouldn’t have killed me, but I don’t think you would have turned me either. Anyway, my chances are probably better now.”
“And you’re satisfied with a…what? Thirty percent chance at surviving the next five years?” I asked.
“I could die tomorrow by crossing the street just as easily. At least this way, I have some kind of chance.”
If I wasn’t sure he was taking stabs at me before about my parents, I was certain now. After all, I had told him that when I was turned into a vampire, it was after getting hit by a car while crossing the street.
Then I remembered something else he had told me several months ago. “But did you ever find out if you’re sick?” A few months ago, Ethan had gotten a needle stick from a patient who was HIV positive. Or so he had led me to believe.
Ethan took a sip of his coffee in a way that made it seem like he was avoiding giving me a straight answer.
“Wait a minute—there never was an incident, was there?” I asked. “Why did you lie to me?”
The expression on Ethan’s face was hard and unapologetic. “I just wanted to see what you would do if I pushed the issue. To see what lengths you would go through to save me. But I apparently have my answer.”
“But you might not have even been sick,” I started to argue out of habit, but then I changed my mind. “The person you’re a blood doll for, is he…?”
“It’s none of your business, really.”
“No, what I’m trying to ask is, does he treat you okay?”
Ethan shrugged. “Fine, and there’s no pretense between us, which makes it even better.”
“What do you mean?”
“What I mean is, he doesn’t pretend to care about me in any way, like you did. It’s purely a business transaction.”
“I wasn’t pretending to care about you,” I protested. “I really do care.”
“Fine, whatever. But now there are no emotional attachments at all.”
“So is it just, what, blood for a chance at being a vampire then?”
“Well, it’s the same deal we had. He takes blood from me, plus blood from the hospital, and in exchange I get free rent and the possibility of being made a vampire in a few years.”
“You think that’s the deal we had?” I asked.
“You don’t?”
“Well, no, I mean….” I could think of no delicate way to say it, so I said, “We also had sex, and you acted like you loved me.”
“I know, and that’s another reason why it’s better now.”
I raised an eyebrow. “And that would be because….”
“Because with….” he began. “Because now it’s purely a business transaction.”
“So there’s no sex?” I blurted out.
Ethan was in the middle of taking a drink of coffee, and almost spit it back out. “What? No! Why would you even think that?”
“Because when I see other vampires with their blood dolls, it’s always, you know, sexy.”
“Oh, you mean when you see the male vampires with their female blood dolls. Yes, I know what you mean. But do any of them get turned into vampires? No. Because there are no female vampires in the city. If I had known that before I started looking, it would have saved me a lot of trouble.”
I nodded absently. Ethan was right, of course. Except for Heather, who was now dead, myself, who was now human, and Cora, who Michael didn’t know about. And of course we were all turned by Alex, not Michael.
“The Prince, Michael, only turns male blood dolls, and even then, only the blood dolls of certain people who are in his high regard. That’s the only way someone can become a vampire in this city.”
I nodded again, but remained silent, thinking about how my own chances of becoming a vampire again were slim to none anyway.
Ethan abruptly stood up. “I need to head out now. Sorry for the misunderstanding.”
“Okay, right, bye,” I mumbled, looking down at my empty coffee cup. When I looked back up, he was gone.
Eventually, I thought to text Tammy, who would be getting out of work soon, so that we could take the subway home together.
On the way home, she listened to my tale of woe without interruption. Then she said, “So are you just attracted to jerks by instinct, or what?”
“We weren’t even dating,” I said. “Oh, and I can’t believe I forgot to say this first, but guess who is my new boss?”
“Who?”
“Alex,” I said. “The guy I was actually dating until he also suddenly didn’t want to see me anymore because I’m human.”
“Did he say that?”
“Not explicitly, but I thought he made it pretty obvious.”
“Hmmm, well, I tried looking up that symbol while I was at work, but didn’t find anything yet,” Tammy said. “Partially because we’re not really allowed to use the internet for personal reasons, much less use it to look up magical symbols.”
“Maybe Nina and Max had more luck,” I said.
“Nina and Max!” Tammy suddenly said. “I almost forgot what they told me.”
“About the symbol?”
“Kind of. They said they asked Diana about it over lunch, and she flipped out.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I mean like Diana completely lost it. They said as soon as she looked at it, she started screaming and got up and ran from the diner. They tried to stop her in the parking lot, but she got in her car and drove off.”
By then, we had gotten out of the subway in Queens and started walking home. “Do you think we should tell Amy?” I asked.
“I don’t see what good it would do. She already knows her mother is pretty unstable.” Tammy took out her phone and looked at it. “I got a text when we were on the train. It looks like some kind of magical epidemic may be starting.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked her.
My best friend gave me a grim look and passed me her phone. The text on it was from Nina, and read It’s happened again. The Enchanted Wood coven in the Bronx lost their powers last night.
Chapter Ten
“Can we get Chinese food tonight?” I asked. “It’s been forever since I’ve had sesame chicken.”
“Em!” Tammy gasped. “Don’t you even care about what’s going on here?”
“Sure, I guess,” I said. “It’s just, well, how much does it even affect me now? I mean, I’m totally human, so I don’t see how this is my problem.”
“You may not be sure about turning into a vampire again, but you also lost your witch potential. Don’t you want that back?”
“Sure, in theory. But I’ve never really used my powers to their full potential anyway, so it’s not like I really miss them or anything.”
Tammy actually stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and shook her head at me. “I can’t believe you. Maybe you’re not worried about yourself anymore, but what about your friends? What about me, and Gregor, and Amy?”
“Okay, sure, I guess I’m a little concerned, but it doesn’t alleviate the fact that I’m craving Chinese food.”
“Fine, fine,” Tammy said. “So when we get home, we’ll order Chinese food first, and then start researching the symbol.”
It seemed like a good plan, but after dinner, Amy wanted to watch a movie that had just gotten released on pay-per-view, and David was feeling social, since the following night would be a full moon and he would be in obligatory werewolf mode. By the time the movie was over, Amy went to bed, and I was also tired after my first almost-full day as a productive member of society.
The next morning, I woke up again just as Tammy was going downstairs. “Good morning!” she said cheerily. “So it wasn’t much, but I did make a little progress on that symbol last night after you guys went to bed.”
“Oh, yeah?” I yawned.
“So, I sent it over to Silver Leaf, and Marie said she would get right on it. They have a ton of rare books in their store, so they have a lot better chance of finding something than we do.”
“Aren’t there internet databases of magical symbols we could look through?”
“I’ve tried that, but the problem is you can’t really type a symbol into a search engine,” she said. “But you should give that a try if you’re free today.”
I shook my head. “I have to go back into work again, but I’ll try looking later, if I get out early enough.”
“Oh, one other thing,” Tammy said. “I added you to the mailing list for the Magickal Well, so you should start getting emails about their events, like the big Beltane thing we were talking about the other night.”
“Yeah, what exactly is that?”
“You know, Beltane? May day? With the maypole dance and the ribbons?” Tammy tried to clarify. “Every year they have a huge event in Washington Square Park, with a gigantic maypole dance, and lectures on magic and stuff. Plus there are vendors selling jewelry, books, crystals, and whatnot.”
“Will there be fried dough?” I asked.
“Yes, I’m pretty sure there will.”
“Okay, I’ll be there.”
When I arrived back at the OmniPlus office a few hours later, I walked through reception and gave a dirty look to the photo of Alex. The receptionist noticed me, and shouted, “Oh, hey, Emma. I have your ID card.”
“I have an ID card?” I asked.
She handed me a swipe card with my old photo on it. It was taken about a year and a half ago, when I first started working full time at the company. Since I had been a non-aging vampire for about six months, it was no surprise that I still looked exactly the same.
“Thanks,” I said, and started walking back to my cube. When I got there, there was no work on my desk, so I knocked on Marianne’s office.
She glanced up briefly and said, “Nothing yet,” before going back to whatever she had been doing.
I made my way into the kitchen to get coffee, and saw that there was a spread of bagels laid out.
“Happy Tuesday,” Ash said, as he waited for his bagel to toast.
“What’s the occasion?” I asked.
“Happy Tuesday,” he repeated.
“Oh, okay.” It occurred to me then that this freelance job could potentially save me a lot of money, as I may never have to buy lunch again.
Armed with my coffee and bagel with cream cheese, I made my way back to my desk, where I started up the computer. Since I was waiting around for work, I read through some old company e-mails to see if there was any interesting news about Alex or the company in general, but could find nothing terribly exciting.
After a while, I started to get bored, so I pop
ped up and looked over the cube divider. “Hey, Ash, are we allowed to read our personal e-mail here?”
“Sure, as long as it’s slow, we can do whatever we want.” I could see that he didn’t have any work at the minute either.
So I spent the next half hour or so reading e-mail. It ordinarily wouldn’t have taken so long, but the e-mail list that Tammy had signed me up for from the magic shop was very active. Most of the posts were about the up-coming Beltane festival, but a few of them were about the loss of magic going through the witch community.
So far, the people affected were me, Silver Leaf coven in the Village, and the Enchanted Wood coven in the Bronx. Since the Bronx was relatively far away, I didn’t know if Tammy’s idea about it being a location-related thing made any more sense. I flashed back to the image of the man with the magical tattoo. Who was he? Was he traveling around New York City, leeching covens of their powers? But why had he zeroed in on me? And why had he taken my vampire nature as well?
As I was staring at the monitor, trying to remember more details from the night I became human, a new e-mail appeared in my in box, with the subject line It happened again!
I didn’t even need to read through the e-mail to realize what they were talking about. This time, it was a coven in Brooklyn, who had gotten together to raise energy to heal one of their ailing cats. The description was basically the same thing that had happened to the coven in the East Village. They were in the middle of ritual, and were all in a trance to raise energy. When they came out of it, they discovered that their powers were gone.
Suddenly, I felt my desk shake as the weight of a particularly heavy folder was dropped onto it.
“Due at six,” Marianne said as she walked away.
I closed out of my e-mail and started in on the work immediately. At first, the deadline didn’t seem that unrealistic, but by two o’clock I started to get hungry, and realized I wouldn’t be able to go out for lunch. By three o’clock I was starting to get desperate, and when Ash came over with a cold slice of pizza and a Diet Coke, I could have cried in gratitude.
But eventually, I managed to finish the job, with only a few minutes left to spare. When I went to give it to Marianne, I discovered that she was already gone for the night. I circled around the art department, looking for someone else I could hand it off to, but Ash was also gone, and I didn’t know anyone else.
