by Aiden James
He sounded angry, and the offended look he gave me almost made me think this was all my fault and none of his. The man is a master manipulator with smooth charms—even in a rage. But who would expect one of the few immortal humans in the world to be anything less than that?
“And you could not find time to write me a note or some other way to let me know you’ve cared as much about me and Alaia as you say you do now?” My own wrath matched his.
I hadn’t seen Racco in nearly six months, and as in the case with Peter, there had been no attempts on his part to contact me. The human male species—regardless of the century they’re born in—tend to be self-centered, as many a female can attest. There’s no point in trying to convince a man that this point of view is the correct one, since admitting to such a shortcoming could prove fatal to their chauvinistic outlook on life. That’s true even for the ones who keep their arrogance and sense of privileged status on the ‘down low’.
We are here for them, and the rescue that we all long for—our own damsel in distress syndrome—can only happen when the man pursuing us wants something from us. Usually that simply means sex, and any heart-felt conversations will end as soon as the libido is fulfilled.
This perspective fed my inner resolve not to fall prey to his devilish charisma or Adonis good looks. For those unfamiliar with my earlier account, Racco is a splendid male. Eternally in his late thirties, he has a smile that would even put Peter’s movie-star grin to shame. He is classically handsome with strong features and sky-blue eyes that shine like Mel Gibson’s from long ago. Jet-black hair with thin, white streaks along his temples, his full hairline and thick, wavy hair are a woman’s dream to run her hands through…I think so, anyway.
Racco has just enough facial lines to indicate maturity, and a refined French accent that bears a slight eastern European edge. And everything he wears looks fabulous—including his present laid-back look of jeans and a soft white cotton shirt with billowing long sleeves that were rolled up to his elbows. The shirt was open to just above his nipples, revealing his taut chest lightly covered with soft brown wispy hair and the gold medallion he favors.
So, why go on like this? Because he torments my soul and body like no other man has ever done! Including Peter, whom I promptly forgot about upon meeting Racco last November. And if Chanson hadn’t sabotaged my attempts to have sex with him, perhaps Alaia would have a different father than Peter. Of course, it would also mean that Racco would have fathered children with both her and I, as Kazikli revealed earlier.
“You never got my letters?” His anger melted to confusion and then hurt. In less than fifteen seconds, I went from wanting to emasculate him permanently to wrapping my arms around him for comfort. “I gave them to Nora who slipped them to Kazikli, since she said that Gustav had assigned him to watch over you.”
“No, I never received any letters.” I tried to picture the sequence of events that made sure the correspondence never reached me. “If I had, I would’ve certainly responded.”
“Responded ‘how’?” He took an almost absent sip of wine while eyeing me thoughtfully. His blue eyes seemed deeper, and I could almost feel his probing gaze invading my weary psyche. “Franz and Mercel have told me how you were without any means of modern communication until this trip. So, that is why I’m willing to forgive and move on with you, Txema.”
“But what if I’m not ready to deal with you again?” I pulled my gaze away from him long enough to check on my baby girl. Alaia was smiling at us both, perhaps amused at the rise and fall of our voices as every emotion quickly gave way to another—in so many ways a lovers’ quarrel, despite our complete lack of a relationship to speak of. “I have someone else whose welfare is far more precious than either yours or mine is.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” he said, and motioned for me to take the full glass of merlot. Meanwhile, the plane began to move. I hadn’t even noticed the door being locked by the steward. “That’s why it is critical for you to hear my ideas on how to make sure both she and you stay safe from Ralu’s army. Please…sit down while we talk.”
He insisted again that I take the glass, which I reluctantly did. Then he gently scooped up my daughter into his arms while directing me into the chair where her Moses basket was still sitting.
“Why is the plane moving?” I said, suspiciously, as I glanced out the window view shared by both seats. I moved the basket onto the floor and sat down.
“For security concerns, it can’t stay where we had it parked,” he said, retaking his seat. He smiled lovingly at my daughter who was gently cradled like a cherished football against his muscular forearm. “The plane will stop moving before we finish our discussion.”
I nodded thoughtfully while watching the hangar get smaller behind us.
“So, I take it that you knew about my date this afternoon.”
I looked for something other than the ‘state of us’ to talk about. But then I pictured Peter’s new love, Sara, in my mind and felt the air being sucked out of me once more.
“Yes, I did,” he said, glancing out the window before looking at me again. This time his loving smile was directed at me. “You had to resolve your relationship with Peter to come to grips with what is in the past and what is in your future, Txema.”
“Why do you even care?” I almost regretted the harshness the question was laced with. But I couldn’t help it. “And why travel a few thousand miles across the Atlantic to find out how things turned out—that’s a little creepy, don’t you think?”
“It was four thousand, three hundred, and fifty-three miles from Paris to here,” he said, evenly. I felt some vindication to know I’d hit a nerve. “But, no, it’s not creepy…. Not when I love someone and care only that they are completely safe and happy.”
His eyes turned a shade darker, and they glistened.
“So, you’ve done something like this before?” I wasn’t ready yet to let his heart off any easier. “I thought that’s what servants and hired vampires were for.”
“Txema, stop it!” he said, his tone more hurt than angry. He stopped himself before going on, casting another loving smile at Alaia, who cooed contentedly against his arm. He gently stroked her hair and then looked back at me, with a serious expression. “It’s more than an adolescent curiosity about your welfare…I honestly love you. I’m in love with you, and I’ve felt that way since when we first met on my boat last year.”
I didn’t know what to say. Part of me felt this was so inappropriate—this whole scene seemed out of whack. I had just experienced my heart being ripped out of my chest by losing the man I likely would’ve married had the war waged by Ralu against his brother Gustav never taken place. Yet, another part of me—deeper than the other—felt good. In fact, it felt fantastic that this man who would be a fine prize in any age—whether modern or any other time period in his two thousand year existence as the younger brother of the infamous Comte de St. Germain—desired only me and no one else. But, I needed time to sort through both the numbness, and the exquisite thrill to know which one was the stronger of the two emotions, and therefore would endure the longest….
The plane suddenly picked up speed, and I realized we had veered onto a runway.
“Goddamn it, Racco, you lied to me!” I fumed. “You said the plane would stop moving after we finished our discussion!”
“I didn’t lie, Txema.” He calmly secured his grip on my daughter while he pulled a shoulder harness around him and her. He motioned for me to do the same with the harness on my seat. “We just have lots to talk about. You should buckle up, my chérie!”
At first I remained defiant, leaning forward in my seat while I glared at him. But when the plane lifted into the air and bounced upon the runway again before rising high into the air, I took his advice. Hurriedly securing my seatbelt, I continued to eye him angrily.
“They will kill you once they find out you did this, you know,” I said sullenly, once the plane had cleared the airport and headed east. The neigh
borhoods and highways below looked like they’d all easily fit inside the slight gap inside my clenched fist. “There’s far too much at stake for the vampires of Europe to allow you to go unpunished for running off with their prized ‘youth’ vessels!”
“Do you enjoy the prospect of being a lifelong blood bank for them?” he said, smirking slightly before returning his loving gaze to Alaia.
“Well, no, of course not!” Indignant, I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. I hated the squeaks from the expensive leather, since every movement was amplified much louder than I would’ve liked. “I’m much more than that to them—and so is Alaia! They need us for survival, yes, but they will always love and protect us—at least they’ve never deserted me!”
Another look of pain as he glanced sharply in my direction; however, he didn’t respond right away.
“You remind me so much of Chanson, when we shared a similar discussion centuries ago,” he said, choosing his words carefully while looking out through the window closest to us. We had just entered a misty cloudbank, leaving very little to discern outside the plane. “She defended Gustav’s actions at the time, along with a handful of other vampires who are no longer with us. It was the beginning of her downfall.”
He shook his head sadly while absently stroking Alaia’s silky hair.
“Is that when you fathered two girls with her?” I was unable to restrain the knowing smirk that forced its way upon my face. “Was it your way of making her feel better about her misfortunate lot in life? After all, who’d ever want to be food for the immortals?”
He looked up at me with an even deeper pained expression on his face. “So, you’ve heard about our daughters?”
“Two babies born out of wedlock—it must’ve been a real party for my dear cousin back then!” I said, picturing Chanson as the victim of a much more experienced and devious male out for one thing. I wondered how long it took before Racco took off and left her…a few days? Or, perhaps, he lasted a week before deserting her.
“You could never understand what it was like back then!” he snarled, his voice shaking from the growing rage he fought to keep in check. Even so, Racco’s face had turned several shades darker with a deep crimson tint. He was seriously pissed! “Chanson was the first woman I ever truly loved…and the girls—our daughters, were the most beautiful children I’ve ever sired….”
His eyes filled with tears and he looked away. Talk about immediately feeling like an evil bitch. Yes, I wanted to get his previous relationship with my vampire cousin out in the open—to expose the fact I knew about the two of them, and how wronged I’ve felt by his seduction last winter since he chose to go after someone who shared Chanson’s bloodline. I mean, isn’t that sort of like sleeping with cousins or even sisters? It made me feel cheap and no more respectable than if I’d been one of his barmaid whores from a bygone century.
“I’m sorry…but I do want to know what this was all about back then, and what it means for your present relationship with Chanson,” I said, hoping my gentler tone would be perceived as the olive branch I sincerely intended. “What were your daughters’ names?”
“Jacqueline and Marissa,” he said, taking a deep breath before going on. Meanwhile, Alaia yawned, perhaps signaling she somehow instinctively knew that the more hostile moments between Racco and me had passed. “From what I understand, Jacqueline was the one given credit for reintroducing the bloodline to your ancestors. But, soon after our daughters were born, other female cousins of hers—nieces of Chanson’s—developed the birthmark and soon became carriers of it, as well.”
“Are you saying that some women among my ancestors simply woke up one day with this cursed thing on their throats?” I pointed at mine incredulously. “That’s fucking absurd!”
“So it would seem,” he said. “Although, it happened over the course of several years, each of the women given the mark all bore children with the same twin teardrops along the left side of their necks. At first, it was a mixture of males and females born with the birthmark, but eventually it became only females again who carried the ‘gift’. Truthfully, they were the only ones to survive, as I witnessed several male stillborns back then.”
I nodded pensively, more to let him know that I genuinely considered what he told me as true. Admittedly, there was enough implied information that enabled me to fill in most of the blanks for what he didn’t share…like the resultant peaceful co-existence between him and the majority of civilized vamps. Gustav and Racco definitely were on friendly terms when I watched them interact last November. But, I worried now that what Racco had just done by kidnapping Alaia and I could totally erase any and all goodwill between them.
“What do you believe will happen to you when Gustav and the others catch up to you?”
“Other than a nasty verbal confrontation and some bared fangs? Absolutely nothing!” He laughed, and Alaia made a chirping sound, as if she wanted to join in. She was fully awake and smiling at him again.
“Are you ready for me to take her off your hands yet?” I couldn’t help but smile at the two of them. “She’s probably ready for a change by now.”
“She seems fine…maybe in a little while she will be ready to discard me like her momma has,” he said, adding a playful wink for me to keep my dander down. “I know you are worried about the volatile anger you’ve experienced with the civilized breeds of vampires. It would take an incredibly horrid thing for them to even consider killing me.”
“How so?”
“Because I know how to permanently destroy them all,” he said, and his tone was a curious mixture of triumph and sadness, as if he truly knew the recipe but hoped never to use it. “Every vampire on the planet could be gone within a few days if I were ever to reveal their ultimate ‘true death’ formula.”
I suddenly remembered my conversation with Kazikli about the most common ways to kill a vampire, and how my guardians mentioned that a certain kind of silver could prove fatal to them. Kazikli especially seemed uncomfortable discussing the subject.
“Is the weapon ‘silver’?”
He eyed me curiously and shook his head ‘no’.
“Not silver in the sense we would think of it,” he said. “But, there is a metal that carries a similar color and has a nickname that makes it sound like the two metals are related in some way.”
He paused to study my confused expression, as if expecting me to guess the answer to his riddle.
“It’s a form of hydrargyrum, better known as mercury,” he said, pausing a moment for me to join in with the rest of the answer, which I still didn’t know. “You’ve never heard of ‘quicksilver’?”
“Yeah…yes I’ve heard of it,” I said, immediately seeing the connection to what Raquel had mentioned about a ‘particular kind of silver’ that could kill a vampire. “So, how is mercury worse for vampires than it is for humans?”
“When mixed with a certain rare version of the element gold it becomes extremely toxic for them. The mixture is lethal because of the mercury’s liquid form, which enables the elixir to spread through their bodies like a flame on a river of gasoline,” he said. “You probably already know that the fumes from combustible mercury are most harmful to humans, and if a child is involved, the exposure can kill them. A vampires’ immortality in some ways is like a young human child—the metabolism and growth rate of new cells is similar. Do you remember how I told you what happens to my body when we took the helicopter up into the Pyrenees Mountains back in November?”
“Yeah, I remember,” I said, nodding as I pictured our conversation. “You told me that your body’s cells are in a perpetual state of regeneration.”
“Yes, that’s precisely true!” he said, sounding quite pleased that I remembered what we discussed that day. “A vampires’ metabolism is even faster, which is why they have ravenous appetites that are difficult to control—especially for the younger converts. That same high metabolism becomes a literal fuse to a bomb when they encounter the gold-laced mercury I mentioned. A th
imble-sized serving can kill an adult vampire in minutes, and a bathtub full could easily bring down most of Ralu’s army….”
“As well as destroy all of the civilized vampires in the world,” I whispered softly, picturing a horrible demise for the vampires I held dear to my heart. “You’ve never used such an elixir on anyone, I hope?”
“Never,” he said, and then relaxed in his chair while studying me again. This time he wore a curious expression. “Neither me nor my brother, Comte, created this elixir. He has never wished to annihilate our eternal companions any more than I have. It was devised by one of the oldest vampires alive today, and he did it as a means to end his own existence.”
“Who was that?”
I honestly had no clue as to who it could be, largely because I’ve never known a vampire who didn’t cherish their life—definitely not anyone in my immediate group of guardians. As for the ancient ones, Gustav seemed to thoroughly enjoy the regality and privilege of his kingly status. Ralu’s loathing was for his enemies only, and he obviously craved power and dominion over others. Nora has too much compassion for humans and vampires to fit the self-loathing vamp profile. As for Kazikli, despite his pleasant disposition and concern for others, every now and then I caught a glimpse of enormous inner turmoil….
“It’s not Kazikli, is it?” I thought about what this ancient vampire told me in our long talk alongside the Kosi riverbank in Nepal. His candidacy was more based on the fact he raised Comte and Racco in ancient Persia, and was responsible for their development as expert alchemists. By virtue of his knowledge of rare potions and magical elixirs alone, he would be a logical suspect.
“Yes, it was Kazikli,” said Racco, his tone filled with surprise while his expression bore admiration for my guess. “The first century of any vampire’s existence is the worst one, since it often includes long term separation from their creator into the undead state, for one reason and another. Add to that the inevitable old age and dying that eventually finds all of their mortal loved ones, and you have one hell of a depressing lot to face. Suicide is fairly frequent, but almost always drawn out and excruciatingly painful.”
