by Helen Allan
“Aw C’mon,” I gesture to the sea, throwing my arms in the air.
“Years of practice,” he grins, before taking my hand and turning to keep walking.
A huge smile breaks across my dial. I can’t help it. He’s holding my hand, and it feels warm and smooth and wonderful, and it means we are not just friends, that maybe he is attracted to me too. As we walk, he rubs his thumb up and down the side of my hand, and I feel it in every nerve in my body.
“Still, I suppose it’s nice that he thinks I’m dippable,” I laugh.
Zan snorts.
“Do you think I am?” I suddenly ask, surprising myself at my own forwardness. “wick dippable I mean?”
He grins.
“Definitely wick dippable.”
We are out of sight of the house now, and he stops and turns to face me. Leaning down he puts an arm around my waist and draws me into him so that our bodies are pressed together. I look up and his mouth claims mine in a soft, gentle kiss and it’s like my body just tingles with pleasure. I wind my hands into the curls at the back of his neck and draw him down further as his lips become firmer and our kiss deepens. All the waiting is worth it, those lips are as fantastic as I imagined and I open my eyes to see him looking down at me, his eyes blue and intense. I pull away.
“You can’t kiss with your eyes open,” I say, clearing my throat, “that is just weird.”
He chuckles, “I was just making sure you were with me.”
“Oh,” I blush.
“Why did you open yours?”
I shrug, “same reason I guess.”
He smiles and takes my hand, and we keep walking. But every now and again I cast a look up at his profile, and I can see the smile is still on his face, and inside I’m doing cartwheels.
The next day is just as weird as the first. Zan’s father and mother barely look at me at the breakfast table, and I’m starting to feel more and more uncomfortable. I’m determined to tell Zan I want to leave, I don’t perform well under intense, hateful scrutiny and I’m liable to shoot my mouth off and say something rude. It would definitely be best if I make a hasty retreat.
But Zan’s father has other ideas.
“I want you to go see Aunty Clementine today Zan,” he says, putting his coffee cup firmly down on the runner on their beautiful solid timber table, “take your gypsy.”
“Her name is Freely, Dad,” Zan says, his voice deep and slightly annoyed.
I’m grinning on the inside. He just stood up to his scary father for me; this guy is a keeper.
“And I’m not a gypsy,” I add, “I’m Australian.”
“Just do as I ask son,” his dad sighs, ignoring me completely and rising from the table. I notice he gives Zan’s mother a pointed look, she hasn’t said a thing all morning but looks more composed than yesterday. I can’t help thinking that, with her blonde hair scraped into that tight bun, and her high cheekbones, she looks a little like Grace Kelly of Monaco – when she was alive of course.
“When you come back we need to have a serious talk,” his dad adds, turning to leave.
“Dad, what is this all about?” Zan sighs, pushing back his chair and standing.
“Just go Zan,” his father says, not bothering to turn and look at us as he leaves the room.
On the drive over to his aunt’s house, I quiz him about his family.
“So your brother?”
“He was five years older than me; he married a foreign girl, I think you’d like her.”
“Was?” I ask, picking up on his intonation.
“He was killed about six months ago in a car accident,” Zan says quietly, “he’s been living in Bulgaria for a few years as our overseas timber rep. His wife lives up the road from here now; she’s just given birth to twin boys.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, thinking through this tragedy. Bad enough that Zan has lost a brother, but his poor wife, losing her husband when she was pregnant. “It’s great that your family is looking after your sister-in-law though.”
Zan shrugs. “She doesn’t have any family of her own, from what I can tell, she moved over so her kids would grow up with a family around them, a network of people. Mum is crazy in love with her first grandkids, of course.”
“Of course,” I murmur, although I can’t imagine his mum being warm with anyone.
“She’s not usually like this,” he says as though reading my thoughts, “my mum I mean. I don’t think I’ve seen her cry since the funeral. She’s usually pretty strong. I’m sorry about, you know, you must think my family is pretty fucked.”
I laugh. “All families are fucked. Everyone knows that.”
He snorts and continues concentrating on the road. I cling to the side of the door and try not to look down; I really hate the small, winding mountain goat tracks they call roads in this country, give me the wide open, flat roads of Australia any day.
“So why is your dad so adamant we have to visit your aunt?”
“I don’t know,” he murmurs as we turn up a little wooded drive towards another house perched on a hill-top.
I can’t help thinking that these houses look like they have been built to maximise views 360 degrees around them, handy if you were worried someone was planning to sneak up on you. I’m not sure why that thought pops into my head, they probably just wanted light-filled homes, but still, I can’t shake the feeling.
“He said,” Zan continues, “that he ‘knows what is going on’ and that the best person to talk to me, first, is Clementine.”
“Did you tell him about the vamps?”
“God no!” he barks out a short laugh, “he’d have me committed.”
“I don’t know,” I say quietly, “he called me your little gypsy, just like that Deliverance guy. Maybe there is more to your family than meets the eye.”
“No,” Zan shakes his head firmly, “we are just a normal family.”
“Maybe,” I grin, “or maybe your aunt is a vampire expert, and your dad is in on the game.”
He laughs. “Aunt Clem is about 70, a real old hippy, grows lavender and herbs for a living. She’s my dad’s oldest friend. She’s like the grandmother I never had. I doubt whether she even knows what a vampire is.”
I nod and smile. But I think it’s strange that his dad’s oldest friend is a woman about the same age as him. I wonder what his ice queen wife thinks of this relationship. I keep my thoughts to myself, however, as we approach the house and a little old lady opens the door. I can’t help shake this strange feeling Zan is wrong.
Aunt Clementine embraces me warmly as we get out of the car as though I’m a long-lost daughter and I instantly relax.
She shoos her cat off the lounge and invites us to take a seat as we enter her cosy home. I immediately feel comfortable; her eclectic style suits me to a T. It’s like I’ve just met the future me. We always had cats at home; I’d like to get one of my own, one day when I settle down, a Siamese.
“Go on, off with you Dracule,” she says, pushing a fat, black cat off the chair and brushing some stray hairs off the cushion.
I raise my eyebrows at Zan, and he shakes his head and grins as we flop down side by side on the squishy sofa. He takes my hand, and I grin like an idiot but try to act nonchalant.
“You may call me Clementine,” she says, turning to me and looking at me with bright, bird-like eyes. “And you can sit further apart from my boy.”
I gasp, shocked and begin to move along the lounge away from Zan, but he draws me back, holding my hand tighter.
“Aunty Clem,” he says, frowning.
“Don’t you Aunty Clem me,” she says, leaning forward and smacking our hands with her walking stick with a sharp crack. “Do as you are told.”
We immediately unclasp our hands and move apart.
“Now you listen to me, and you listen well,” she says, leaning forward and eye-balling us both. “This Freely is a gift to you, a gift you will appreciate your whole life. For she is your gypsy.”
Zan and I ra
ise our eyebrows and look at each other, but before we can open our mouths, she continues.
“I’m going to tell you a story. A story that begins a long, long time ago, and involves both your ancestors.”
“Ah shit, are we related?” I moan.
“No. And I don’t want to hear cussing,” the old woman says sharply.
I turn bright red and clamp my mouth firmly shut as she begins her story. But something in my face must have annoyed her because instead, she rises.
“Come, I have someone I want you to meet.”
Shaking our heads in total confusion, we rise and follow her to the door, where she orders Zan to start the car.
“We go to Evita’s,” she says imperiously.
I look at Zan and mouth the words “What the fuck?” but he is looking as shocked and confused as I am, so we do as we are told.
“Let me get this straight,” I say, putting my coke firmly back onto the coffee table and eyeballing the bitch.
“You were Richard’s gypsy, you protected him for years and years, while you both hunted vampires, although obviously not well enough, because now he’s dead, and you think you can tell me how I’m going to live the rest of my life?”
The woman in front of me snarls. She has black hair in a short crew cut, a dyke cut Tanya would have called it, extensive tattoos on her hard muscular arms, exposed today in a short black sports bra that exposes a mid-drift ribbed like a weightlifter. Her black eyes remind me exactly of the little black beads I had on a necklace once when I was a kid.
She has also completely pissed me off, and I am not a happy camper.
“You will do as your blood destines,” she says in her thick, to my ears, Russian, accent. “You are Gypsy. Our role is to guard the princes. That is what we do. When our time is up, we produce more of the gypsy line. You, now, will travel to Bulgaria with me for training. Your prince will also travel; his training will also be strenuous. When you are both fully trained, you will take up the role you were born to.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I wave my hand in frustration, “I get that whole, partnerships in fighting bad vamps thing. I can even swallow the preordained, fated to meet crap. ‘Because that appeals to my romantic, Mills and Boons brain’ What I don’t get is you saying Zan and I can never be together, we are together.”
“There is no fucking of your prince,” she shouts again. This was actually the third time she had yelled this at me, and I was especially glad that Zan was off walking and talking with Clementine and not privy to what could have been a very embarrassing argument between myself and Evita the bitch gypsy.
“The prince is aristocracy, he will continue his line, you are his partner, maybe his friend, his protector, but never his lover. This can never be.”
“But why?” I can hear the anger in my voice dissipate. I’ve always been one of those people who need things explained to me before I can fully accept them. It’s like maths problems; you can’t just tell me something is I need to know how it is if I am going to get my head around it. I’ve never been very good at maths.
“Because,” she breathes in heavily through her nose and I decide she would probably get on well with Tanya, they both have short fuses. “Your blood is forbidden to mix, your relationship, if it became more than what it must be, would risk his life. His life, his blood, his lineage is the most important thing. Without the princes, the world would be overrun with darkness. The vampires would take over and rule, and humans would be nothing but food and slaves, as we once were.”
I sigh and pick my coke up again.
“But they need us. You said so yourself. We are partners in the war against vampires. If they need us, how come we can’t, you know, be partners in all ways?”
She looks at the ceiling. I think for a second she might attack me, she is like a spring-loaded weapon, but instead, she forces some words out, as though she is explaining to a moron.
“Our blood is magical. His blood is magical. Separate magic. Separate bloodlines.”
“Why am I so attracted to him then? Why is he attracted to me? If we are destined to never be together in that way?”
“It is all in your head,” she says firmly, “you have mixed up why your blood is calling to him. It is not for love. It is for duty.”
“Duty,” I say dully, I feel tired, the jetlag is still present, but that’s not it, I’m emotionally drained, I’ve had a gutful.
“I’m going now,” I say quietly, “I’ll be waiting for Zan in the car.”
Evita nods. “Pack your things when you get back to his home,” she says firmly, “we fly out tonight.”
On the drive home I want to share with Zan what Evita said, but he makes it clear he is not in the mood to talk. Unfortunately for him, I’m not in the mood to shut up.
I lean over and place my hand on his shoulder, and he jerks away as though burned. His reaction is like a powder keg to my pent-up anger. I’m pissed at the way his parents have treated me, pissed at his aunty, pissed at Evita, pissed in general and I’m not the kind to hold it in for this long.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I say, anger making my voice tremble. “Pull over; we need to talk.”
He ignores me and keeps driving.
“I said pull over,” I shout.
He jerks the steering wheel and pulls over abruptly, and we sit in silence for a minute.
“What?” he says, looking out the window and not at me.
“Did you get the same talk I did? That we are a vampire hunting partnership, that your family have been in this for like, centuries? That we can’t be together?” I gulp as I say the last words, embarrassed at having to be the one to raise the issue that most concerns me. I am all for having adventures and fighting vamps, I can see the life I once led has been closed to me, the secrecy surrounding out discovery will see my friends and family, in essence, taken from me and that too, is something I feel keenly. But I want this man, in every way, I am not ok with having that taken away from me too.
“Yes.” He opens his door and hops out. We are on a relatively straight stretch of road, so I get out too and lean across the bonnet. I’d like to get close to him, but I can see he is stretched taut like a piece of strained fencing wire and needs his space.
“Don’t you think we should, you know, talk about this?”
No Freely,” he sighs walking around to my side of the car, “There’s nothing to talk about. We have to go to Europe; I have to train to take up my family’s fight against vampires, like Richard was doing before they killed him, and you have to train to help me.”
“Is he dead, dead?” I ask, “or turned dead?”
“We can’t be turned,” he says, his voice serious as he leans down and opens the car door for me.
I pause before getting in; this may be my last chance to talk to him before he shuts down again.
“So, you believe what they are saying? That we are destined to go hunt vamps, that I am your protector and will spend my life looking after you?” That we can never be more than friends?
“Yes.”
“And you are ok with that?”
He leans on the car door and looks at the ground; I can see his jaw clench before he looks back to me. His eyes are clear and kind, and I see the honesty radiating out of him.
“Maybe we,” he swallows, “maybe we were attracted to each other because of the whole danger thing, maybe we just got mixed up somewhere along the way, when really, all along, this partnership is what we are meant for.”
I swallow the lump in my throat. All I heard was ‘were’ attracted to each other. Apparently, he doesn’t feel anything towards me now, anything other than an alliance as a hunter.
“Freely,” he says, after a minute of silence, “please, tell me what you are thinking, I need to know you are as committed as I am.”
‘Committed, now there’s a funny word.’ I’m trying not to show I’m upset, but when you are barrelling down the road to tears, it’s kind of hard. It’s the same when I’m really, su
per angry with someone; I usually cry – always have, it’s bloody annoying really. “So this is kind of goodbye then,” I whisper.
“Yes,” he says quietly.
I close the distance between us, reach up and pull his head down to mine. I know I shouldn’t, I know he clearly doesn’t want me anymore the way I want him, but I just do it.
And he doesn’t stop me.
Our lips meet, and he groans, pulling me tight into him and kissing me with force. It’s pure passion, and pain, only our second kiss, but also our last and we both know it. I want to think he is grappling with the same frustration I am, and as he wraps his hands in my hair and deepens the kiss, it feels that way. But all too soon he pulls away.
“Get in the car Freely,” he says, his voice husky, he doesn’t look at me as he turns away and we don’t talk on the long drive back to his house.
Chapter 6
Vampire killing training camp was weird. Of course, I mean, just saying those words is weird, but actually going there, participating in the kill drills, the history lessons, the geography and survival skill training – weird.
Zan and I are housed in separate wings of a grand mansion deep in the Bulgarian forest; Gypsies in one wing, aristocrats in the other, but we all eat together most days and train together on weekends.
I watch him all the time, and on more than one occasion I’ve found his eyes on me, but I get the feeling Evita has ratted on us to the camp hierarchy – we are together less than most other partnerships. We haven’t been technically alone together since the flight, and even then Evita sat between us, quashing any private conversation we may have had.
She spent the entire trip trying to cram a lifetime’s worth of gypsy lore into a few hour’s flight. After a while, I switched off, but I did get the main point; form relationships with other gypsies, don’t form attachments with blood princes or you will be gutted like a fish. Got it.
Zan got a similar talk; your blood is pure, there are factions within the princes, watch your back, forge friendships, keep your paws off your gypsy.
