by Lucy Lyons
Peter thought about the dark circles under Ashe’s eyes and the drawn look to her face that had concerned him recently. She seemed to have lost an unhealthy amount of weight in the span of days. He then remembered the way she had choked while trying to drink water, as if swallowing had hurt her throat. Peter had written it off as the onset of a flu, but Winnie’s concerned tone made him think it was something far worse. Peter relayed this to Winnie.
“It was my mistake,” Winnie said. “I never should have given you those earrings without knowing what they truly were.”
“The family heirlooms,” he said. “The ones I gave to Ashe for Christmas. But what do they have to do with Ashe being sick?”
“You knew what they meant when you gave them to her.”
They meant that Ashe was part of his clan. She was under their protection for as long as she lived. He thought that by giving Ashe the earrings he was keeping her safe, not endangering her as he apparently had.
Winnie replied, “By giving Ashe those earrings, you were bonding her to your family by more than just your word. What I didn’t know was that those earrings carry the very blood of your clan’s matriarch. They are, in essence, a vessel containing her power, a means to pass down her abilities to future generations in order to create a line of vampires stronger than any other. In this case, your matriarch’s ability to project thoughts and emotions at will.”
Peter listened uneasily as Winnie explained. “You’re telling me that Ashe is the one manifesting the powers?”
“The telepathy, yes,” Winnie replied. “I’m sure you’ve found that your efforts to stem the flow of thoughts coming from Ashe have been useless. That’s because Ashe is the one controlling the power. Just as you have found that you can control your telekinesis at will, Ashe has the ability to stop projecting her thoughts to you. She can’t control the power because she doesn’t know she has it. It’s also what’s making her sick.
“Had Ashe been a vampire herself, the earring’s power, the telepathy, would have been added to whatever power she already possessed and she would have become a quite powerful vampire indeed. However, Ashe is a human. She is not compatible with the vampire blood, but the vessel doesn’t know this. It is only doing what it’s meant to do. The earrings are essentially turning her into a vampire, though they alone can’t complete the transformation. Only the fresh blood of a vampire can do that. If things are left to progress as they are, I fear that Ashe will not last much longer.”
“But she stopped wearing the earrings months ago,” Peter said. He couldn't believe that a pair of old earrings was to blame for all of this, ones that he had given her himself.
Winnie sighed again. “The act of giving her the earrings was enough. By doing so, you made her the next in line to rule your clan. The magic concerning the line of succession is strong and not so easily broken. Even if you wanted to, you could not take it back.”
“What will happen to her?” Peter asked, cold fear filling his insides.
“The blood in her veins will slow, then stop,” Winnie replied in a quiet voice. “She will not be able to gain sustenance from regular food and drink, and blood will do nothing to but make her sick as she is not yet a proper vampire. She will enter a trapped state between life and undeath, where the only way out is to turn her or let her die.”
Peter couldn’t bear the thought of Ashe turning into a vampire, but even worse was the prospect of her dying. He had faced a similar situation before, and at the time his decision not to turn her had proven to be the correct one. But this time there was no other way out. This time things couldn’t be solved with blood transfusion and a few days’ bed rest. David wasn’t going to burst through the door and fix her this time. There was no other choice.
“It’s the only way.” Winnie sounded truly sorry.
“I understand,” Peter replied and hung up the phone.
Ashe barely survived the drive home, her vision swimming and her head feeling like it was going to burst in half. She was desperately thirsty, but knew in the back of her mind that anything she consumed would make her sick. She parked the car haphazardly in the driveway and stumbled up to the front door. Her sweaty hands slipped on the doorknob once, twice, and Ashe felt her consciousness flagging. She needed to get inside and warn Peter before she completely passed out. The doorknob slipped once more in her hands. She wasn’t going to make it.
Suddenly the door swung open and Peter was there helping her to the sofa in the living room. He was pushing something into her hands, a glass, then helping her lift it to her lips. The liquid was warm and salty, with a familiar taste to it that Ashe couldn't place. Her first impression was to spit it back out, but found that her body was craving whatever the liquid contained and she drank the whole glass. Only when she had finished did Ashe notice the tinge of red, and the iron smell of blood in the air. She dropped the glass and it rolled to a stop on the carpet. Ashe was shaking, terrified. Whose blood was it, and why had it tasted so good?
“There’s something wrong with me,” Ashe muttered. She felt a white-hot heat burning through her veins. Her senses were growing sharper, more attuned to everything around her. But the effect came in waves, like trying to catch a radio station while driving through the mountains. It was maddening.
“It’s okay,” Peter said, though his voice and expression did not convince Ashe. “I know why you’re sick, and I can make it all better. You just have to trust me.”
“No,” Ashe protested. “We don’t have time. Will knows about you. The town. They’re vampire hunters. They want to kill you.”
Peter seemed troubled, but he ignored her and pressed on. It was hard for Ashe to follow what he was saying, but caught something about earrings and the blood of Peter’s clan. Peter was trying to tell her something important. Ashe fought to understand, though she could tell her body was giving up. This was no flu she had. It was something far worse.
“I need to turn you,” Peter said suddenly.
Ashe thought she had misheard him. When she failed to reply, he repeated, “I need to turn you, to make you a vampire.”
“You can’t,” Ashe said. The words escaped her before she could take them back.
Peter’s green eyes wavered. Ashe had only seen such a look in Peter’s face once before, on the steps of the college cathedral when Ashe had professed her hatred for his kind. Peter probably thought that she was rejecting him, that deep down she still feared the vampire part of him and did not want to become like him even if it would save her life.
Peter ignored her protest. He took a knife from his pocket and flicked the blade open. “If you drink my blood,” he said, holding the knife to his wrist, “you will survive. It’s the only way. The blood I gave you earlier won’t sustain you forever. Your body is still human. If you don’t complete the transformation you’ll die.”
Animal blood, Ashe thought, recalling the taste of the liquid that had brought her back from the edge of unconsciousness. It had been meant to tide her over until Peter could turn her fully. Whether she liked it or not, her transformation had already started. She was no longer human and there was no way back to what she once was. Embracing this new part of her was the only way.
“I’m scared,” Ashe said. She didn’t know who, or what, she was anymore. She wanted to cry.
“It’s okay,” Peter repeated over and over. The calm in his voice lulled Ashe like a drug as he slid the blade against his pale skin, leaving a thin black line that quickly beaded with blood. The inky liquid spilled from his vein down his arm, pooling at his elbow before dripping onto the carpet below.
He held his arm out to her, offering her his blood. Ashe didn’t know if she could bring herself to do it, but Peter was already bringing his arm up to meet her lips.
“If you do this, we can be together forever. You won’t have to worry about growing old without me. We’ll watch the decades go by without the shadow of death looming over us. It’ll be like a fairy tale. Just you and me, and as much time in the w
orld as we want.”
Ashe took the leap.
CHAPTER 5
Peter’s blood was cold as ice, and sweeter than anything Ashe had ever tasted. It filled her with his essence, his memories, and as she drank deeper she felt herself sinking into the depths of Peter’s very mind. She saw lace curtains hanging over the top of a bassinet, and the youthful face of Peter’s mother peering down at her. She saw the sunny days of Peter’s childhood dotted with the blood of the animals he had hunted so cruelly without knowing any better. She watched as Peter and his family left Europe for America, the age of vampires slowly drawing to a close. In the midst of all this, she also saw wars, death, and whole periods of human history go past as if in the blink of an eye. Carriages made way for automobiles and the skyline filled with the smokestacks of factories. The very pace of life seemed to quicken. The reel of Peter’s memories sped up too, with longer gaps and blank spaces as if the film had been damaged in the speed of its recording. Peter’s life became disjointed, conflicted, as he struggled with the morality of killing versus the nature of his condition. The one thing that remained constant was the good in his heart, and the desire to do right by humans as well as his own clan. There was a loneliness too that followed Peter like a cloud through the long span of his life.
When Ashe finally came into the picture, everything changed. The loneliness fled and every moment became precious. Even the bad memories, like killing Landon and casting out Penelope from his clan, held gravity in Peter’s mind. They had been acts done to protect Ashe, and so were to be cherished even if they hurt to remember.
Ashe became vaguely aware of a tugging on her shoulder and Peter calling her name. She released his arm from her grip and let his memories flow out of her mind. When they were gone, Ashe felt a coldness deep inside where they had been. She longed for them back, but knew she would never see them again.
Ashe watched with awe as the blood from Peter’s arm trickled to a stop. The skin was already stitching itself together as if it had never been marred. Inside she felt like her soul was stitching itself together as well, the broken human part of her making way for her new self. It was this new self that had brought her even closer to Peter and saved her from the edge of death.
“Ashe,” Peter called.
Ashe ran her tongue across her teeth. Her canines had formed into sharp points.
“Are you okay?”
She flexed the muscles in her arms. They felt taut like a spring, and incredibly powerful. Her vision too, seemed sharper than before even though the sun had set and the house was nearly dark.
Peter asked, “Are you still there?”
She wasn’t alive, but she definitely wasn’t dead. Her heart sat like a rock in her chest, unmoving, but her being was crackling with new energy. “I’m here,” Ashe replied.
Peter looked deeply into Ashe’s eyes and she recalled all she had seen of his past, the hurt, the loneliness, and was overcome with the desire to be close to him. She needed that physical connection that had been denied her for so long. She pressed her body against his, pulling his arms around her.
“I need to be with you,” she breathed, and let her desire take over.
It was like swimming, a little. Awkward at first until they got into the rhythm of it, and then it became like nothing Ashe had ever experienced before. Peter was gentle and caring as he knew it was her first time, and Ashe feared nothing as she lost herself to him. She could feel her vampire blood awakening even further as Peter held her close, the full potential of her abilities surging through her. She felt powerful, and though she let Peter take the lead she knew she was his physical match and that he could not hurt her through the act of their lovemaking. Even when his nibbles turned to bites and his breaths into growls, Ashe was not afraid. She relished the sensations, her closeness to Peter, and the feeling that nothing could take him away from her now. They were bonded to each other in blood and in body. Ashe couldn’t wish for anything more.
Ashe lay curled up in her usual sleeping position at Peter’s side, only this time there was no barrier between Peter and Ashe’s soft skin. All of this was as new to Peter as it was to Ashe. He knew little of love, only that the woman by his side meant more to him than anything else in this world. She was his, now and forever, and nothing could take her from him. Not even time. Now that Ashe was a vampire, Peter wouldn’t have to watch her grow old. He wouldn’t have to sit by as the years of Ashe’s life ticked away, Peter himself untouched by wrinkles and young as the day they had met. There was now little keeping each other from an eternity together. Once they left Morris, that was. Time may have been defeated, but vampire hunters still very much existed. Now that Ashe was a vampire, she too was vulnerable to their stakes and silver bullets.
Peter shifted slightly and Ashe woke. She looked much better than before, her strength returned tenfold by the transformation and subsequent sleep. However, her body was now cold against his, with none of the human warmth Peter had often marveled at before. Her chest did not rise and fall as it used to, and her heartbeat was silenced.
Peter couldn’t help but feel a pang of loss in the midst of his happiness. Part of what Peter had loved about Ashe had been her humanity. It had radiated out from her like a brilliant sun, bringing light and warmth into Peter’s life at a time when he had thought such things impossible. Now she was, like him, a shadow. She would have to start learning how to hide her true nature from those around her, always looking over her shoulder for those who might hurt her if they knew what she was. Peter knew he had changed in the time since they had met, becoming less of the carefree student he once was and darker, more serious. He hoped the same change would not affect Ashe. He had fought so hard for that first dimpled smile of hers back on campus so many ages ago and did not want to lose it again. Ashe had spent so much of her life closed from the world; she deserved to be free, to be happy.
“You awake?” Ashe asked, propping herself up on one elbow.
“Mhmm,” Peter replied. The room was dark but the moon shone brightly through the window, making Ashe’s light eyes glitter the surface of a pond. Peter gazed at her. She was beautiful, that much hadn’t changed.
“How do you feel?” he asked.
Ashe smiled. Better than I ever have, she thought. Her words filled Peter’s mind like a sonic boom. He winced.
“Easy there,” he said. “You have to remember that you’re a lot stronger than before.”
How’s this?
Ashe’s words this time were like a whisper in his ear. Their intimacy tickled his brain and made him burn with fresh desire, his body responding in kind. He could have made love to Ashe right then but held himself back. There would be plenty of time to have their fill of one another once they were out of Morris. Still, it was hard for Peter to keep his hands off her.
Then something clicked.
“What you did just now, have you done it before?” Peter asked.
Ashe sat up. The bed sheet slipped but she caught before it had slipped below her breasts. Still modest after all they had done together, Peter thought with amusement.
She looked at him, confused. “We’ve always talked telepathically.”
“No,” Peter shook his head. “The, uh… Other thing. What you did just now with your mind to make me...” He glanced down with a bashful smile to where his arousal was slightly visible under the bed sheets.
“I don’t think so,” Ashe replied. But Peter knew that she wouldn’t have been aware she was doing it before, like her telepathy which they had both ascribed to Peter.
Peter said, “I know Will tried to kiss you. I saw it in your memories.”
Ashe looked embarrassed, and a little hurt. “Why bring it up now?” she asked.
Peter explained. “I don’t think it was his fault, or yours. Vampires have certain talents for attracting the opposite sex. You didn’t know you had these powers, and like the telepathy, you couldn't control it. I think Will was under your spell when he tried to kiss you.”
&n
bsp; Ashe’s brow furrowed as she considered what Peter was telling her. “I’ll try to be more careful,” she finally said.
Peter shook his head. “It’s fine. The bigger problem is what’s going to happen if we don’t get out of this town soon.”
Ashe’s expression turned serious. “Will promised he would wait the weekend before coming after you, to give me time to say goodbye, but I’m not so sure about the others in the town. Your buddy Jerry seemed to be the most eager to stick a stake through your heart.”
“He must have seen my missing reflection in the mirror at the theater,” Peter said. He tried to think back to other occasions that might have given him away. He had shaken Jerry’s hand on that first day they had met. Had Jerry been wearing work gloves? Peter couldn’t remember. Even so, cold hands wouldn’t have been a dead giveaway. But the town’s people were trained hunters. The smallest signs wouldn’t have gone unnoticed.
“I think we should stick to our plan to leave tonight,” Ashe said.
Their bags were already packed and the car was full of gas. There was nothing keeping them in Morris any longer. Peter agreed and got up from the bed. He started pulling on his clothes that had been strewn about the room. Ashe did the same, turning demurely away as she slid on her underpants and fastened her bra. Peter snuck a glance or two her way, still feeling the effects of her spell on him.
Once they were dressed, they gathered their moving boxes by the door and prepared to leave the house they had briefly shared. Peter reminded him that this was only the start, and starts were often rocky. They would find a new place, a new home. Ashe would adjust to being a vampire in time and things would go back to relative normal.
“Ready to go?” he asked Ashe.
“Yeah,” she replied though her eyes were moist with tears.
Peter put his hand on the doorknob and opened it for the last time. But there was someone waiting for him on the other side.
It wasn’t Will as Ashe had feared, or Jerry, or any of the other people from the meeting that Ashe knew were coming for Peter sooner or later. The person standing on their front porch was barely even a person. His cheeks were sunken-in hollows and his dark hair hang limply over one eye, not quite hiding the fact that the socket was empty. He smiled and his teeth were like the teeth of a saw, all jagged edges and razor points. Ashe screamed.
