Blood Jewel

by Georgia Cates

  Chansey spun around and gave me the look. It was the one that told me to not get her grandmother started on what she thought about women being undomesticated, but I already knew what Anna thought about the subject. Although she worked as a teacher for years, she was old-fashioned and I liked it. She believed in being a good Southern girl that cooked for her husband and gave him lots of babies.

  “Don’t let him fool you, Granna. I cook. It’s not fried chicken and biscuits, but I make sure my husband is fed well,” Chansey explained and then whispered under her breath for only my ears, “And he has an insatiable appetite at times.”

  I laughed and said, “She takes very good care of me, Mrs. Emerson. She is a wonderful wife.”

  “I never doubted she would be, but enough of this Mrs. Emerson business. I want you to call me Granna.” She opened the oven door and put the biscuits in. “You’re part of our family now and you’re giving me my first great-grandchild.”

  We both saw that it was useless to try to convince Anna that Chansey wasn’t pregnant, but it was almost nice to play along and pretend, so neither of us tried to correct her the second time she mentioned Chansey’s fairytale pregnancy. I hoped she wouldn’t be terribly disappointed when she saw she was wrong.

  ≈ ≈ ≈

  After staying all week with Chansey’s family and friends, we failed to prove to Anna that Chansey was not pregnant and it became a running joke between us. When Anna’s back was turned, we acted out charades of her being pregnant and miserable. It was incredibly juvenile, but so much fun and it took our minds off of the inevitable.

  I drove slower on the way home and it was late when we made it back to the compound. I sat our bags down in our bedroom and I was glad to be home even though it meant my time with my human Chansey was almost over.

  Chansey took a shower while I caught up with Sebastian and was already in bed asleep when I came back to our room. So much for our last night with her as a human. Maybe she was just catching a little nap before the nighttime festivities were to begin. A guy could be hopeful.

  I got into the shower and stood under the pellets of water thinking about the turn of events my life was about to encounter. Tonight was Chansey’s last night as a human and I felt like I was stuck in the denial part of the stages of grief. It didn’t feel right to me and it didn’t feel like this was happening to us. It wasn’t fair. There was so much we had not gotten to do and now we would both be condemned into the darkness of the night without ever having the opportunity to experience life together.

  I would not be finished grieving the loss of Chansey as a human anytime soon. Although I was going to get to keep her as a vampire, it wasn’t the same. We were supposed to do this when the time was right and tomorrow was not it.

  I reached for the shower faucet and turned the water off. I ran my hands over my hair to squeeze the excess water out and reached for my towel. I put the towel to my face to dry it and I held it there to catch the tears I felt coming.

  Tears! I hadn’t felt tears in almost two hundred years and I liked the way they stung my eyes, but there would be no more tears, daylight, food or sex after tomorrow. There would only be darkness and blood drinking.

  I wasn’t just losing Chansey as a human. She would be losing me as a human as well and I struggled with the fact that she might not love me as a full-on vampire. I would be different, not the Curry she knew and loved and I hoped she didn’t love me less afterwards.

  I finished drying off and I stepped out of the shower with my towel around my waist. Chansey was standing in the bathroom and something was off with her. Our connection was off. She felt...asleep as she stood right in front of me. Was this her version of sleep walking? She was looking right at me. She didn’t look asleep.

  “What’s wrong, Chansey?”

  She continued to look at me, but it felt more like she was looking through me. I didn’t like the way it felt and it scared me. “What is wrong with you? Tell me now,” I anxiously said to her.

  “Now is not the time to turn Chansey. She has things to do before she is to fulfill her destiny as a vampire.”

  Why was she referring to herself like that? “I don’t understand, Chansey. Are you saying you’ve changed your mind? You don’t want me to turn you?”

  “There will come a time when Chansey becoming a vampire will be right, but it will never be because Marsala’s hand forced the decision. It will be when both of you are ready and after she finishes what it is she must do.”

  Again with the strange references to herself. She turned without another word and walked to our bedroom. What was she doing? She couldn’t say bizarre things like that to me and then walk off without an explanation.

  I followed her to our bedroom. “Why are you acting so strange?” I asked as I walked through the doorway and I saw her lying in our bed.

  She didn’t answer and she looked like she was asleep, but that couldn’t be the case because she was just standing in the bathroom with me being all weird and cryptic.

  I reached over and touched her arm. “Chansey, why are you acting so strangely?”

  She was undisturbed by my voice or touch and I realized she was asleep. I looked at her clothing and she wasn’t in the white dress I just saw her wearing in the bathroom. Impossible.

  I had officially lost my mind. I sat on the bed and watched Chansey sleep as I tried to rationalize what had happened, but I came up empty handed. I had absolutely no idea what was going on.

  Maybe it was one of Marsala’s Black Magic tricks to scare me out of turning Chansey. It wasn’t that farfetched to think she could make it happen and it made more sense than anything else I could think of at the moment.

  Chansey looked so peaceful as she slept, so I decided to take advantage of Sebastian’s presence at the Savannah compound to quiz him about what had just happened.

  I found him in the living room with the others. “Sol, would it be alright if I used your office for minute. I’d like a private word with Sebastian.”

  “Sure, no problem.”

  Sebastian followed me to Sol’s office. He had a seat across from me and looked at me expectantly, waiting for me to speak.

  “I just had a strange experience. I’m not sure, but I think it could have been some type of trick by Marsala with the Black Magic.”

  He leaned back in his chair. “Tell me everything and don’t leave out a single detail.”

  “I had just gotten out of the shower and was standing in the bathroom with a towel around my waist. I saw Chansey standing in the bathroom, but it didn’t feel like Chansey. I’m still learning things about our connection, but it didn’t feel right. She didn’t feel right. I always know when Chansey is asleep and that’s how it felt, like she was in a deep sleep.

  I asked her what was wrong and she says, ‘’Now is not the time to turn Chansey. She has things to do before it’s time for her to fulfill her destiny as a vampire.’ I thought it was strange how she referred to herself, but then she tells me, ‘There will come a time when Chansey becoming a vampire will be right, but it will never be because Marsala’s hand forced the decision. It will be when both of you are ready and after she finishes what it is she must do.’

  I followed her out of the bathroom to find out why she was behaving so strangely and I found her asleep in our bed. She wasn’t wearing the white gown I has seen her wearing when she was in the bathroom.”

  I watched Sebastian's face and waited for his wise words to calm my nerves. “I don’t think this had anything to do with Marsala because it’s too benign in nature. She doesn’t have the control in her to reach out to you or Chansey without evil actions. This would have been a missed opportunity for her and we both know she would have taken advantage.

  There’s something I haven’t mentioned to you because I don’t know if my theory holds any truth to it or not, but I believe I could be on to something. It has always bothered me that Chansey had a twin to die at birth because Ella did as well. It seems unlikely that Anteros would
opt to save one twin and not the other, so I have done some research and I don’t believe Emelyn was a twin at all.”

  “What do you believe she was?”

  “I believe Emelyn is Chansey’s Fylgia.”

  It was vaguely familiar and I knew Sol would be disappointed in my lapse of remembering what he taught me about mythology. “I remember Sol taught me about Fylgias, but I don’t remember what it is.”

  “A Fylgia is a supernatural being that accompanies a person in connection to their fate. They appear commonly in one’s sleep and when they materialize, they act as guardians. I think Emelyn is Chansey’s Anteros appointed protector. Emelyn would have protected Chansey in her mother’s womb during the pregnancy and she always appears to Chansey during the most important times in her life. She guides Chansey through life.”

  It was all coming back to me. Yes, this made sense to me. “I have to talk to Chansey about this. I have to explain things to her.”

  “Don’t worry. She’ll understand. She was made to understand.”

  “Thank you. I guess it was a good thing you came to be with us when Chansey was transitioning.”

  “It was no accident that I was here when Emelyn appeared to you.”

  “I have to tell Chansey. I can feel that she isn’t sleeping restfully. I think she is having a nightmare, so I’m going to wake her and explain what is happening. Thank you, Sebastian.”

  I was out the door before I heard his response. I entered our bedroom and saw Chansey sleeping restlessly as she moaned, “No...don’t,” in her sleep. I touched her arm and she suddenly came up off the bed fighting and gasping for air. I reached for her and pulled her into my arms. “You’re safe, Love. I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”

  Her heart was pounding so hard, I almost felt the pulsation of it in my ears. She was terrified.

  “It’s Marsala. She came for me and she found me. She found us.”

  She was up to her Black Magic tricks to get to Chansey again. I didn’t understand why it wasn’t time for Chansey to be turned, but I had to have faith that Anteros would show me how to protect her from Marsala and her supernatural means of reaching Chansey.

  “You’re going to be fine, Chansey.”

  “You can’t turn me tomorrow,” she announced.

  Apparently, I wasn’t privy to that information. “What makes you say that?”

  She covered her mouth with her hand as tears spilled from her eyes. “I had a vision of something that happened. I think it’s a prophesy.”

  A prophesy? Of what? “You said the vision has already happened.”

  “Yes. I think Emelyn is showing me what happened when we were at Granna and Granddaddy’s house. It happened when we were asleep in the apartment. Marsala found us. She stood at our bedside and watched us sleep, but I don’t think she was corporeally there. I think she was there through Black Magic.”

  The Marsala I knew wouldn’t have simply watched us sleep. Sebastian was right about her not missing her opportunity. “She only watched us sleep?”

  “She watched us for a while, but then she came closer to me. She stood over me and stared at my sleeping body for a long while. When she was finished, she was about to put her hands around my throat when she suddenly stopped as if she was listening attentively to something. She leaned over me and put her ear to my chest like she was listening to my heart. She stayed that way for a minute and then she moved her ear lower down my body to my stomach. She listened another minute and I saw a malicious grin come over her face. When she lifted her ear from my stomach, she replaced it with her palm and said, ‘It is your lucky night, Agápe. Tonight you escape death because you carry his child, but that won’t always be the case.’ Then, she turned and left.”

  Damn, I didn’t know how Marsala could manage to be so cruel from so far away, but this was clearly another one of her tricks. Chansey’s heart was pounding away and I knew what she wanted me to do, but I didn’t want to hurt her by telling her there was no baby.

  She reached for her flat belly, touched it and then looked at me. “Is it possible?”

  I shook my head and squeezed my eyes tightly to prepare myself to say the words. “No, Love, it’s one of Marsala’s tricks.”

  She rested her palm on her lower belly and asked, “Will you put your ear here and listen the way she did in my vision? Only to put my mind at ease?”

  It felt cruel and inhumane to do this to Chansey. I saw the hope in her eyes, wishing for this impossibility to be possible, even if she wouldn’t admit to it.

  “I will if it’s what you want, but I don’t want to upset you.”

  “I want you to,” she said as she lay back flat on the bed and pulled her satin nightgown up away from her body. “I would feel better about being turned tomorrow if I knew there wasn’t a little tiny Curry in there,” she laughed, but I didn’t mistake her jest for indifference. She wanted to hear me tell her that I heard something.

  Her reference to being turned tomorrow reminded of another disappointment I would need to discuss her after I told her there wasn’t a baby. I looked at her tanned belly above her black lacy panties and thought about how it deserved to be swollen with a beautiful baby for her to love. I rubbed my hand over it and wished I could give her this thing she repetitively denied wanting.

  I didn’t know why, but I took a deep breath and held it as I leaned forward to place my ear just above the edge of her panties. We were both silent and motionless as I listened for the telltale sign of a new life within Chansey. I held my breath, expecting to hear nothing, but hopelessly wished to hear the sound of a miracle.

  And then there it was...the sweetest sound to ever be heard by my ears. Lub dub, lub dub, lub dub, over and over again, at least 170 times over a minute.

  My heart began to race and I realized I was still holding my breath. Could it be? Surely my ears were tricking me.

  “I feel your excitement. You hear something, don’t you, Curry?”

  I couldn’t lift my ear from her stomach. I didn’t want to stop listening to the repetitive lub dub sound because I was afraid I was wrong or that it was another one of Marsala’s Black Magic tricks.

  Chansey reached for my hair and grabbed a fistful, forcing me to look up at her. “Tell me what you hear.”

  I was scared to say the words.

  “Ugh!” she groaned. “I can’t tell what you’re thinking because your emotions are all over the place.”

  I broke into a smile that I couldn’t contain if my life depended on it. “I think you need a pregnancy test.”

  ≈ ≈ ≈

  Because it was night, it was too dangerous for Chansey to be out, so I had the honor of shopping for a pregnancy test after midnight. I stood dumbfounded in a 24-hour drugstore staring ignorantly at the numerous shelves of pregnancy tests and had no idea which one to get for Chansey. A female employee walked by and noticed me, but said nothing. A few minutes later, she passed a second time and looked at me standing motionless in a comatose state. “Do you need help, sir?”

  Yeah, she had no idea about the kind of help I needed. I continued staring ahead as I replied, “My wife needs a pregnancy test and I have no idea what I’m doing.” I turned to look at the clerk. “I absolutely have no idea what I’m doing.”

  She reached for one of the tests and handed it to me. “I personally think they’re all about the same, but I’d go with this one if she thinks it’s an early pregnancy. This one claims to detect it sooner than the others. She won’t trust the first result, so get this one with two tests.”

  I took the box from her hand and stared at it.

  “This must be your first one,” she said. “Baby, I mean.”

  I looked up at her. “Yes and not something we expected.”

  She reached and innocently touched my arm. “Honey, babies have this notorious way of showing up when you least expect them,” she laughed.

  “Thank you for your help.”

  “You are quite welcome and early congratulation
s if your wife is pregnant.”

  I smiled at the thought. “Thank you.”

  Marsala could trick Chansey with the dream. She could possibly trick me into believing I heard a heartbeat, but she couldn’t trick two pregnancy tests, right?

  After I paid for the pregnancy tests, I streaked to my car, not caring who saw me, because I was desperate for confirmation one way or the other.

  Once back at the compound, I raced toward our quarters and ran into Sol in the hallway. “Whoa, where’s the fire, dude?”

  “Umm. Umm.” That’s all I could say and I didn’t have time for idle conversation, so I left him standing in the hallway staring after me strangely.

  “Whatever,” I heard him call behind me, but I didn’t care. I could explain my abrupt rudeness after I knew the test results.

  I hurried through the door and Chansey was not in the bed. I didn’t see her anywhere. “Chansey,” I called out.

  She walked out of her sitting room. “I’m right here,” she laughed because of my anxiousness.

  I held the plastic bag out to her. “The clerk at the drugstore recommended these.”

  She took the bag from my hand and pulled out the pregnancy test. She turned it over to read about it and I offered, “I’ve already read the instructions. You just pee on the absorbent tip or you can collect it in a cup and dip it.”

  She rolled her eyes at me. “I figured as much.”

  I stood nervously waiting for her to take a step toward the bathroom, but she didn’t. “I’m scared.”

  I wasn’t sure of which verdict she referred. “Scared it will be positive or that it will be negative?”

  “Both.”

  I put my arms around her. “I’m scared, too.”

  “Scared it will be positive or that it will be negative?”

  “Both.”

  “Okay, here we go.”

  I watched her go into the bathroom and shut the door. I sat on the edge of the bed knowing that our lives were never going to be the same when she came back, regardless of the results, and that’s when I started to panic.

  What if she was pregnant? What would this baby be? Human? Vampire? Half and half? Was that even possible to have half human and half vampire? There had simply never been a vampire baby unless another Agápe couple had one. I needed Sebastian again, but I wouldn’t ask until I knew for sure.