by Scott, K. M.
Vasilije looked over at Alex, half expecting her to try to take him as she left. He didn’t cherish him, by any means, but she simply stormed out, slamming the door behind her.
“Come, Alex. It’s time to go.”
Still sulking, the young vampire rose and dutifully followed his sire. “Will I ever be able to return to her?”
Vasilije turned to face him, wondering how he could have chosen to sire someone so foolish.
“I love her. Please let me go to her.”
Shaking his head, Vasilije answered, “No. But if you’d like, we can find that brunette again.”
Alex’s eyes seemed to light up and for the first time since feeding, he was happy. “The one from last night? Okay, that sounds good.”
Vasilije rolled his eyes as he led Alex out into the night. “True love. How touching.”
Three
Sasa Lambert smoothed the bed covers across her mother’s stomach as she watched her sleep for the first time in days. Only a woman in her early fifties, her mother’s face, with its deep frown lines and forehead wrinkles, resembled one of a person far older. Years of living with illness had taken its toll, and along with the terrible effects of the medicine prescribed to ease her pain, the combination had left Sandra Lambert’s body ravaged.
The vision of her mother finally resting brought tears to Sasa’s eyes. An only child, she had taken on the responsibility for caring for her when her father left almost five years ago. Unable or unwilling to watch a woman who’d once been the beauty of the parish wither away to nothing, he left one night and simply never returned.
“Sasa? Baby?”
“Yes, Mama. I’m here.”
Sasa lightly stroked her mother’s cheek and brushed the stray hairs away from her eyes. No longer the lovely chestnut brown it had once been, now her hair was steel grey and wiry, another effect of the sickness that continued its unrelenting assault on a woman who was still young in years, if not spirit.
“Baby, I’m thirsty. Can I have a drink?”
Reaching over to the nightstand, Sasa grabbed a glass of water and placed it to her mother’s lips. “Drink. Slowly, Mama. Don’t choke.”
Water trickled down the side of her face and onto the shoulder of her nightgown. Sasa quickly found tissues and blotted her face and shoulder dry.
Her mother gently nudged her away and worked to sit up. Groaning from the pain, she finally succeeded in getting up and took the glass once again. “Thank you for not helping me, Sasa.”
Standing by the bed in case her mother lost her balance, Sasa shook her head. “I hate that, Mama. That’s what I’m here for.”
“No. And it’s not right that a beautiful girl is stuck at home with her mother. Promise me you’ll go out today and have some fun.”
Sasa looked down at her mother as she struggled to place the glass back on the nightstand. How could she ever go out and have fun when the person she loved more than anyone else in the world lay in bed, her body wracked with pain?
“Baby, for someone with your gift, you don’t hide your feelings well.”
“Mama, I can’t have fun and leave you here. It’s bad enough when I have to go out for just a little bit.”
Her mother patted the bed next to her. “Sit. I want to talk to you.”
Reluctantly, she took a seat and waited for her mother to give her the lecture she gave her at least once a week these days. Sasa didn’t know why she insisted on repeating it since she’d made it quite clear many times before that she would take care of her.
“Baby, you can’t go on like this. You’re twenty-seven years old. By the time I was your age, I was married and had a beautiful little girl.”
“It’s not the same, Mama.”
Sasa’s mother squeezed her hand. “I know. I didn’t have to take care of your mémé. But you can’t let this disease take everything from you too.”
Tears welled up in Sasa’s eyes and began to spill out onto her cheeks. “I’m sorry, Mama. I’m just so scared.”
Her mother wrapped her frail arms around her. “Let it out, baby. Let it all out.”
“Oh, Mama, I can’t even think about a husband and children knowing you’re sick,” she sobbed.
When she’d had herself a good cry—and one that was long overdue—she wiped her eyes and smiled. “Mémé would be so happy to see that. You know how she always complained that I kept my emotions all bottled up. ‘That’s not good for people like us, Sasa.’”
“And she’s right. Who would know better than she would? An empath can’t keep all those emotions in, Sasa. It’s too much. You shouldn’t even spend so much time near me since I’m sure my pain comes through loud and clear.”
“Mama, I wouldn’t care if it meant being stabbed all over my body. I’d still be here. But it’s okay. I wouldn’t be much of an empath if I couldn’t control how I react to other people’s emotions.”
Sandra Lambert brought her daughter’s hand to her mouth and kissed it softly. “Baby, promise me you’ll go out today. Find some old friends. Make some new ones. Promise me.”
Too tired to argue with her, Sasa nodded. “Yes, Mama. I promise.”
“Good. I’m tired now. I’m going to take a little nap.”
Sasa kissed her mother’s cheek. “Sleep well. I’ll be back in a little while after I run my errand.”
Her mother rolled over away from her, and Sasa waited until she was sure she was asleep before quietly slipping out. The errand she had to run wasn’t one she could ever tell her mother about, or anyone else, for that matter. But that didn’t stop her from going where she had to.
Sasa stood on the sidewalk of Iberville Street hesitating for just a moment before she entered Madame Quiterie’s. One of a variety of voodoo and alternative healing shops in New Orleans, it was owned by a Haitian woman who claimed to be a voodoo priestess.
The bell above the door announced her arrival, and Sasa looked around the dimly lit shop but saw no one. Quiterie’s text had said she needed to see her at six o’clock but the shop seemed empty.
“Quiterie! You here?”
Silence.
Unwilling to risk angering her, Sasa browsed the store while she waited. She’d lived in New Orleans long enough to doubt that most of Madame Quiterie’s merchandise did anything truly mystical. Much of it looked like fodder for gullible tourists curious about voodoo but ignorant to its meaning. Fake stones and supposedly enchanted trinkets she was sure were made in China sat in baskets along the dingy shop’s shelves. Near the register were herbs of all kinds in little oddly shaped bottles that looked like teardrops.
Sasa popped the cork on one labeled Wormwood and lifted the bottle to her nose.
“You want to be careful with that, baby.”
Spinning around, she saw Quiterie standing in the doorway to the back office. “Really? This is dangerous?”
“Pure wormwood oil is very dangerous. Interested in making a deal with the devil?”
Sasa quickly replaced the cork in the bottle and put it back with the others. “What do you mean?”
“Wormwood is used in spells to make a pact with the devil.”
Sasa looked down at the basket of bottles and back at Quiterie. “Oh. No, no. You said you needed to see me in your text?”
“Yes. I have something I need you to do for me.”
Sasa had to admit she already felt like she’d made a deal with the devil. Six months earlier, in a moment of desperation over her mother, she’d come to Quiterie to find something that could give her at least some relief. Quiterie had taken pity on her and performed a spell to cure her mother. She’d never believed it would cure the disease, but when her mother improved, she was hooked.
Since then, whenever her health got worse, Sasa returned to ask for more spells—protection, health, well-being—whatever worked. But Madame Quiterie didn’t work cheaply and quickly Sasa needed more spells but had no money to pay.
So she told her about her gift.
Quiterie was nothin
g if not an enterprising woman, a fact Sasa soon realized. Instead of making Sasa pay for her services to help her mother, she offered to be paid in trade. Any time the voodoo priestess needed a bit more “insight”, as she called it, into a client or a situation, she called on Sasa. Usually it was just minor work, like sensing a client’s emotions during a tarot reading. She’d sit hidden behind the person and signal to Quiterie to let her know she was affecting them one way or another. It had all the grace of a carnival side show, but if it meant her mother suffered less, then Sasa could swallow her pride.
“I have someone coming in today. Same as always. Come into the office and I’ll tell you about it.”
Sasa followed her into the dimly lit room and sat down on the other side of the desk from the woman. Through the haze of incense, she looked at her partner in crime, or at least in deceit. Quiterie looked every bit the part of New Orleans voodoo priestess. A striking woman, she had big brown eyes that seemed so full of emotion all the time. Sasa found this ironic since she’d never once picked up any real emotions from her. It was as if she were an empty shell.
Her dark skin remained unlined, even though Sasa was sure Quiterie was closer to her mother’s age than hers. What her hair looked like she couldn’t say. She’d never seen even a wisp of it escape from the brightly colored scarves she always wore and which always matched her long, flowing dresses that hid her more than ample figure.
“The client I have coming in today, dear, I need a clear read on. As clear as you can give me.”
“That’s fine. Anything else I can know about this person beforehand?”
Quiterie didn’t answer for a long moment and then when she did, she sounded more mysterious than Sasa had ever heard her be.
“She’s from far away and is looking for something very unique.”
“Okay.” That didn’t really tell her anything, but that was probably a good thing. She didn’t need to be any deeper in a voodoo priestess’s business than she already was.
“When is she getting here?”
“I expect her any minute, so take your place.”
Sasa hurried behind the curtain near the door and waited. As she sat there, she made a mental list of the things she hoped to get done after she finished playing Wizard of Oz for Quiterie. Hopefully, her mother was still napping so she’d have time to cook the rest of the week’s dinners when she got home.
The ring of the front door bell shook her from her planning, and she pressed her eye to a hole in the black curtain to see Madame Quiterie’s mystery client. With her face against the scratchy cloth, she saw the woman was tall with long blond hair. She wore all black, which accentuated how thin she was and made her seem even taller. It also gave her an ominous air.
She had an English accent and spoke formally, as if she were an actress playing a part from the 1800s. For a moment, Sasa got lost in her voice and its almost hypnotic quality, but Quiterie’s voice saying the word she always used to remind her to pay attention brought her back to focus.
“Welcome my dear. Tell me what you’ve come to Madame Quiterie’s for today, dear.”
Two dears was her signal for Sasa to begin.
“I want your help to exact revenge on someone.”
Sasa sat up straighter on the wooden stool, suddenly interested in this client. Most of Quiterie’s customers came looking for spells to make someone fall in love with them or to help them win millions in the lottery. Those people were easy to sense. They were desperate. Even Quiterie could sense that.
Then there were those that were a little darker, like the women who wanted help breaking up a marriage to have the man of their dreams. It was this type of person Sasa was there to read. Not necessarily desperate, these clients were the kind that Quiterie wanted to string along. They had definite goals and given the right emotional manipulation, could be convinced of any measure of success, even where there was none.
This woman was exactly the kind of client Quiterie liked.
“Revenge? What kind of revenge are you looking for, my dear?”
Yes—why would a woman like this need a voodoo priestess to get revenge on someone?
Sasa closed her eyes and opened herself up to the emotions radiating from the blond next to Quiterie. Her formal way of speech and proper English accent masked a firestorm of feelings, which instantly threatened to overwhelm Sasa. Never before had she sensed such rage and hatred in another. The level of sheer anger coming from her frightened Sasa, and for the first time in her arrangement with Quiterie, she wanted to run.
“I want him dead, but first I need him to suffer.”
“Dead?”
Oh, my God! Had she really said that out loud?
Before Sasa could escape, the blond had ripped the curtain from in front of her and stood glaring down at her with her green eyes full of rage.
“Is this some kind of sham, Madame Quiterie? What’s going on here?”
Sasa stood from her stool, speechless and waiting for Quiterie to give an explanation for why she’d been hiding there. Her growing fear exploded into terror when the blond opened her mouth and with a sharp click flashed two white fangs. Quiterie’s client was a vampire!
“No, no! No sham! Please let me introduce my helper, Sasa Lambert.”
“Sasa.” The blond said her name as if it were a curse.
“Sasa has a very unique gift. Tell her Sasa.”
Hesitating at first, Sasa finally uttered, “I’m…I’m an empath.”
“She can sense people’s emotions. I’d say that’s a very useful gift, wouldn’t you?”
“People’s emotions? What about mine? Can you sense mine, Sasa?”
Timidly, she answered, “Yes.”
Sasa glanced over at Quiterie, unsure of how much to say, but she saw her nod to give her the go-ahead and looked back at the blond.
“I can feel the anger pouring off you. Whoever got you angry, he’s made an enemy in you, for sure.”
“Very true. You’ll do fine.”
“Do?”
Quiterie spoke up. “Sasa, Tatiana needs you to use your gift to help her.”
Forgetting that the blond still flashed fangs, Sasa stepped past her toward Quiterie’s desk. “No. I can’t do that. I won’t.”
“You want me to keep helping your mama, don’t you, Sasa?”
Sasa felt like someone had kicked her in the stomach. What if Quiterie didn’t continue her spells for her mother? She couldn’t let her suffer like that.
“I can’t help you kill someone. Even my mother’s health isn’t enough to make me do that.”
Sasa knew very little about vampires, other than they obviously existed and they didn’t suffer from disease. Or at least that’s what she’d heard. An idea crept into her mind and without thinking it through, Sasa turned toward Tatiana. “But I’ll help you if you help my mother.”
“And just what do you want me to do with your mother?”
“Make her like you—a vampire.”
Tatiana’s face registered her surprise at Sasa’s request. When she didn’t answer, Sasa was sure she’d lost the standoff, but just as she was about to agree to help in exchange for more of Quiterie’s spells, Tatiana spoke again.
“Fine. I will sire your mother. Is this your only demand, empath?”
Sasa didn’t believe it was in her best interest to ask for anything else, but she did need to know what she would do to her mother. “What will happen to her? Will she feel any pain?”
“Why do you want your mother to be a vampire?”
Sasa’s chest tightened at the thought of her mother. “My mother’s sick. She’s always in pain. I don’t want her to have to deal with more.”
Tatiana smiled. “After I sire her, she’ll be as healthy as a horse, as long as you give her the blood I give you to help her through her first days as a vampire.”
“Is that it? What about after that?”
“That’s what people are for.”
“Then we have a deal? I’ll help you a
nd you’ll help my mother?”
Tatiana grinned wide enough so Sasa could see her fangs again. “Deal, empath. We need to go now, though.”
Quiterie stood surprised and disappointed, Sasa thought, since now that Tatiana would make her mother a vampire, she wouldn’t need any more of the voodoo priestess’s spells.
“Tatiana, let me know if you need anything else.”
Sasa looked at both women and had the surest sense they were keeping something from her. Just as Tatiana made it to the door, Sasa said, “First my mother. Then I help you.”
She wasn’t sure, but she could have sworn the woman growled before turning around.
“Fine. Let’s go.”
Sasa hurried to catch up with Tatiana, not knowing if she’d just made the biggest mistake of her life or the best choice available to cure her mother’s misery. Worse, she had no reason to believe her deal with the vampire was anything more than her serving herself and her mother up as Tatiana’s next two-course meal.
But if there was a chance to save her mother, she had to take it.
Four
Vasilije stretched out across his bed, enjoying an early night in. Weeks of training Alex had been taxing, but he was finally ready to be left on his own. He’d chosen to go out earlier, and Vasilije was thankful for the peace and quiet.
Alex had developed the habit of picking up women each night and had all but forgotten his feelings for Tatiana, so he could be trusted alone. That he acted like a horny schoolboy had become tiresome, but Vasilije was happy that his obviously deep love for Tatiana was no longer an issue.
The overriding boredom Vasilije felt was another thing entirely. That wouldn’t go away as easily as Alex’s feelings of love. Centuries of siring vampires who quickly became a duty more than anything else made him yearn for excitement.
“Maybe a visit somewhere warm,” he muttered into the silence of his room.
Years of the commonplace left him with an unfulfilled need, one that couldn’t be satisfied with anything he could find at his usual haunts. How had life become so mundane?
As he began to slip into self-pity, suddenly a pain stabbed at his chest and he sat bolt upright in the dark clutching near his heart. One of his vampires had just left his life. Who? Where?
