Shades of Red

by T L Christianson

  I watched him spread the cream cheese across the toasted halves of his bagel.

  “I…” I was going to tell him that I wanted a relationship or that I wanted to be with him, but I chickened out.

  His face was glowing with happiness, and his gaze was somewhere else.

  I couldn’t. I couldn’t ask him or tell him. I felt all twisted up inside, so I just pasted on a smile and sipped my coffee.

  I had become more diligent at keeping blood at hand. I worked around children I'd grown to love, and I couldn't slip up. To avoid this, I'd begun making regular trips into town and doing some maybe-shady bargaining with the homeless community. I brought chips, sandwiches, soda, water bottles, blankets, and bags filled with candy bars. I also brought them socks, hats, and gloves, too, and in exchange, I took just a little blood.

  It was a win-win.

  Fine! I felt guilty! But animal blood tasted terrible and was old.

  Tonight, I had another mission. I was looking for the man I'd compelled a while ago. Parking my car in the lot, I stepped out and began my search. I'd like to think that he changed his life and was now well on his way to happiness and the American dream and all that, but I couldn't find him.

  Wandering the river trail, I looked in all the usual homeless haunts, and he was nowhere to be found.

  I was surprised by the number of street people who'd stayed to brave out the winter in our little town. Although many had left, I still had my pick of donors. Often, I could get blood from them during the day if I waited in the park near the soup kitchen.

  As night fell, I saw one of my regulars beneath the high bridge, setting up her bed for the night.

  "Hi, Mary!" I called out. "Do you want a sandwich? I have roast beef, your favorite." I rifled around in the backpack I carried.

  "Only if you got a beer to go with it," she responded in her gruff voice.

  I pulled out a bottle of water. "Water or grape soda?"

  She sniffed and sauntered over to me. "Hmm, the water, I guess."

  I smiled. "Chips?"

  Nodding, she took the food from me and made herself comfortable on her sleeping bag under the overhang of the bridge.

  "Kid," she said to me, "I don't get it. You're not peddling Jesus, so why are you out here?"

  Sighing, I sat next to her on the concrete path. "I think we all want something. Maybe I'm preventing something bad from happening."

  Her snort was loud and made me laugh. "Nobody does nothing unless they want something in return. What do you want from me?"

  I looked her dead in the eye. "Your blood."

  Mary burst out in a hearty chuckle, grabbing her sides. "That's a good one." She unwrapped the sandwich and began eating.

  I hadn't taken blood from her in several weeks, so she would be a suitable donor tonight.

  "I ain't done nothin' to nobody an' that punk kid been coming up and bothering us locals," she mumbled.

  "Who? Who's been bothering you?"

  "Damn cops. I was just trying to do my own thing, and he comes upon me, harassing me, telling me to get outta the park." She wiped her nose on the sleeve of her jacket. "So, yeah, it's the same new kid. Don't know his place. If I wanted to be hassled all day and night, I woulda stayed with that S.O.B. I'm married to."

  "Hmm… want me to talk to him?"

  Her chuckle made me smile. "Nah, little thing like you, he'd eat you up."

  When she finished the food, I knelt before her. "Mary, lay down, and I'm going to take some blood. It won't hurt, and you won't remember it."

  She obeyed, and I cleaned her neck with an alcohol wipe, before sinking my fangs into her pink skin. She was just an alcoholic, so there wasn't anything else being pumped around her system.

  Drinking directly from a person was an almost religious experience, between awe and an orgasm. Her blood was thick and hot with a tangy metallic edge that made me giddy. She was a large woman, and I mentally calculated her blood volume in my head before cleaning a spot on her arm and inserting a needle to collect a little more.

  Suddenly, a bright light was shining over my shoulder. I heard a click and smelled the metal of a gun.

  Turning, I saw a young policeman who not only pointed his flashlight at me but also his gun.

  The cop shouted at me, "Step away from the woman, and put your hands behind your head."

  I did as he said, hearing my knee creak as I stood. What? I was over one hundred years old.

  The officer grabbed my arm roughly and clicked handcuffs on my wrists before I could make eye contact. After cuffing me, he shone his light down onto the street woman, who smiled and looked straight through him as if he wasn't there.

  "What the hell?" He reached down and pulled the needle from her arm. I caught his gaze and pressed my intention on him as he turned me around roughly. "What on earth are you…?" His voice faded as I tried to compel him.

  He wasn't drunk or tired.

  He was mad and alert.

  I lost him, and he said, "Oh, Jesus! What's on your mouth? Are you some kind of blood-drinking pervert?"

  Our eyes locked again, and a bead of sweat formed on my forehead as I labored to glamour him.

  Finally, I had him.

  Speaking slowly and smoothly, I felt my will wrap around his mind. "I was giving her food and water. There's no blood. I've done nothing wrong. You're going to free me and go somewhere else. This place freaks you out. You don't like coming here. You need to leave. You need to leave now."

  His hands began to shake as he turned me around to release my wrists.

  "You shouldn't be out here at night, alone, on the streets, in the dark. You're gonna get yourself in trouble." His movements were quick and efficient. "I don't want to see you around here again, or I'll bring you into the station, and we'll have a long talk with your parents about breaking curfew."

  With that final threat, he jogged down the path toward the Park.

  I moved to Mary and nudged her to sleep with my mind. The needle prick had coagulated into a red dot on her arm. I licked my middle finger and healed her skin.

  The bag was only a quarter full. I sighed. That was probably for the best, considering I'd already drank from her.

  Poor thing. I tried to cover her considerable girth with her sleeping bag. I wondered what turn her life had taken to put her on the streets like this. I always wondered about that.

  I walked the streets for another three hours, taking blood from different people and handing out neat triangles of sandwiches along with bottles of soda and water.

  Finally, I got into my car and drove back to the Bennett house.

  I couldn't believe I'd let someone sneak up on me again. I needed to be more vigilant.

  Thinking about people who snuck up on me reminded me of Owen. The question about what he was hung in my mind. Was he a monster, like me, or a human? I'd never met any other vampires, so I wasn't really sure what the criteria would be.

  If he were a vampire, it would explain his nightly runs, and his older wife, who probably aged while leaving him young, and his secret lab full of vampire blood! But I wasn't sure. He had biological children and didn't seem to know I'd been in his lab.

  This was ridiculous.

  How did I test if he was a vampire or not?

  Chapter Ten

  It was the Saturday night before Thanksgiving weekend. My plane would leave the next day, but all I could do was toss and turn in my bed.

  I couldn't sleep, so I went down to the lab to poke around. Wandering the space, I ran my fingers along the cages that were now filled with mice. They were cute little animals; hopefully, their sacrifice for science would be worth it. Some nestled together, while others ran around their cage and on the wheel.

  I thought about freeing them, but I couldn't sabotage Owen’s research in that way. Above the cages sat a blue binder. I reached up, but couldn't quite touch the edge, so I pulled up a stool.

  I stood there, teetering, and ran my fingers over the Chronos Corporation insignia on
the cover. Inside, the charts were filled with Owen's neat handwriting. Temperatures, activities… There were three groups of mice. A control group, and two other groups that were infected but treated with different substances. It looked like the doctor had created a vaccine. That usually took years, if not decades.

  Vampire, my brain warned me.

  Hmmm… Maybe this was a collaborative effort, and he had just made the breakthrough?

  Or maybe he was that good.

  Replacing the binder, I climbed down.

  Sitting at his desk, I began to go through the contents, being careful to place them back how I found them. I could see nothing on the vampire plague and was frustrated at the reams and reams of numbered charts. What was this? Why was nothing labeled?

  I leaned back in the chair, Owen's gray hoodie flopped over onto me, and I picked it up. Pressing it to my face, I breathed in his scent.

  I looked around the room and sighed when I heard a noise coming from upstairs. Quickly, I put the sweatshirt back and hurried to exit the lab and up the stairway.

  Someone was walking down the central staircase.

  Flipping the lights off and carefully closing the secret door, I ran to the study. After flipping on the lamp, I settled down with a book in hand, just in time for Owen to casually stroll in.

  He picked up his own book and sat across the room in an upright upholstered chair.

  Our gazes met for a moment, and he smiled awkwardly at me, nodding to my book. I held up my copy of Pride and Prejudice, showing him the cover.

  He held up his book. I raised my eyebrows, noticing that it was in Spanish.

  "How do you know Spanish?" I asked.

  "I've been bilingual since birth. My mom's from Mexico."

  "Nice.” I pursed my lips before smiling.

  " I thought Spanish was on your resume…" He gave me a teasing smile.

  I coughed. "Oh, yeah… Are you still mad about that?”

  Shaking his head, I thought about languages. I spoke French, but I hadn’t spoken it since Isa died.

  God, I missed Isa. She’d been my best friend and my only real friend. When she began to get older, we talked about trying to change her, but nothing ever came of it.

  She was a devout Catholic, and even though she loved me, she thought I was damned.

  I lost myself in thought thinking about her. We had this incinerator in the backyard where we burned all our trash. I remembered wrapping potatoes in tin-foil and burying them in the ashes to eat later. Then there were her grape vines and the homemade wine she made every year.

  I swallowed. I couldn't believe she was gone.

  "What are you thinking about that makes you so sad?" Owen pulled me out of my reverie.

  Shaking my head, I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "My best friend died a while ago. I was just thinking of her."

  "That's awful…"

  I smiled sadly. "No, no, it was a long time ago. She was my best friend, and a mother, and a grandmother to me, but she lived a good long life." I tilted my head. "Tell me about your mother. How did she end up here from Mexico?"

  "My parents met in the States at UT, and that was that. They got married."

  "That was that?" I uncrossed my legs and leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees. "Love, boiled down to ‘that was that'… hmmm. Your mother must’ve loved him more than ‘that was that' to leave her life in Mexico."

  "Yeah." His eyes gleamed with amusement. "‘That was that,' they were smitten, and got married a few months later." He leaned back in the armchair.

  "How did you meet your wife?" I wondered aloud.

  "No, it's my turn… how did you meet your husband? Was it ‘that was that' love or...?" He shrugged and raised his eyebrows.

  "Fine, but you answer my question next." I looked up at the intricate wooden boxed ceiling. "No, it wasn't love at first. We'd known each other since we were children." I set my book to the side. "However, according to our parents, we were a good match, and ‘that was that.'"

  His brow furrowed. "Wow, arranged marriage. Were you in a cult or something?"

  I smiled. "Your turn."

  "Let's talk about you, and then we'll talk about me."

  I sighed and sank back into the couch, resigned to talk about Alexander. "I loved him, but I was young."

  "Twenty-four is still young," he said.

  It was my turn to raise my eyebrows. If he only knew. "He was older than me." I tilted my head. "Older than you."

  "How old do you think I am?"

  "I don't know, you have kids…" I appraised him. "Late twenties? Early thirties?"

  "You’re close," he answered.

  I laughed. "Well, you look young, but you have kids, and you've been married…"

  "You've been married."

  We both breathed out a defeated laugh and sat in silence until I prodded him. "So, how did you meet your wife?"

  His focus shifted as he looked into the past. "I met her my senior year of undergrad. I was a student, she was… a professor. Yes, there was an age difference, but, she was... glamorous, and I felt like she understood the world in a way I never would. She was good for me and encouraged me to go to medical school and then my doctorate, while doing research." His eyes refocused on me. "I had co-written a paper about some different techniques for diagnosing rare diseases, which is how I got my job."

  "So, if Becca is seven, you guys didn't try for very long before giving up."

  "No, we didn't. Sarah was impatient and didn't want to wait. We tried for about a year with hormones…" Scratching his chin, Owen frowned. "By this point, we were basically out of options for a natural conception, and she wanted to be pregnant."

  I nodded. I'd gone almost twenty years with a barren womb. "I hated the way people talked to me when they knew we were struggling to conceive." I vividly recalled Alexander's mother giving me a stern lecture about how I'd have several children if only I were amenable in the bedroom. Whatever that meant.

  I pressed my lips together, wishing I could tell him everything.

  "So, you ended up doing in vitro-fertilization?"

  "Well, something like that."

  Nothing would work for me now, not IVF, not anything.

  I knew it had been me, because of what I was.

  We sat there in melancholy silence for a moment before I spoke again. "Alexander, my ex-husband… he blamed me for everything." As an afterthought, I added, "That's why I left."

  Owen's serious expression was turned inward. "You told me that. I wondered if it'd been the reason."

  I tilted my head sideways. "Yeah."

  I was fine saying it but hearing Owen's voice and seeing his reaction made me feel it all over again. His compassion and the tender way he looked at me seemed like such a contrast to Alex's cold accusations.

  My tears flowed, and there was no hiding them.

  Owen closed the distance between us. Sitting next to me, he pulled me into his arms. His blue wool sweater soaked up my tears as we sat there for a long moment.

  Leaning to look into my face, he spoke quietly, "That wasn't fair of him."

  I looked out from my long clumpy lashes at him. "I know that now."

  His eyes were tight, and I could tell that I'd affected him.

  I placed one hand on his cheek. "You don't have to worry about me."

  "I can't help it, I do."

  I looked up into his eyes.

  For a moment, time seemed to stand still as his mouth hovered near mine. Gently at first, and then more urgently, his kisses seemed to chase away the shadows.

  I gave myself up to the moment and kissed him back, allowing all my hurt and baggage to evaporate in the heat of our touch.

  He didn't smell like blood, and I didn't want that from him. I wanted something else. I yearned for him and wanted his skin against my skin.

  My teeth skated over his rough jaw, nipped at his ear, and then back to suck on his plump bottom lip. I felt my fangs run out just a little, but I kept tasting him an
d savoring the warm spiciness of his skin.

  Owen's lips were warm as he plundered my mouth and deepened our kiss.

  The old leather couch creaked as he leaned me backward.

  My fingernails traced rows through his hair on his scalp. The dark waves were just long enough for me to tug him away from me for a moment, so I could unclasp his belt and unbutton his jeans.

  We were like magnets and couldn't seem to stay apart.

  You know that phrase, ‘drinking them in?' That's precisely what it felt like to be with him. Every kiss, every caress… we were drinking each other in. I couldn't seem to get close enough. I wanted more.

  I pulled at his shirt, running my fingers down his chest and then the trail of dark hair to where it disappeared into his boxers.

  We shifted at the same time, and our motion pushed us halfway off the settee. Owen caught us both with one arm and startled me with laughter.

  I smiled and shook my head, laughing silently.

  After standing, he held his hand out to help me up and gave me that half smile.

  It was an invitation.

  "This changes things if you come with me. I've thought of this moment since the day I met you. I know what I want." His low voice was raspy with need. "What about you?"

  "I want you," I whispered back.

  I’d been living like a nun for years and had never needed more.

  Until I met him.

  I couldn't remember my excuses for staying away, so I took his hand, knowing precisely what it meant.

  His hand on my back, fingers lightly spiraling over my skin, sent chills skating up my spine.

  Between small kisses and laughter, he led the way into his bedroom. After locking the door, we stumbled to the large four-poster bed. The down comforter sank under our weight as we pulled clothing off and tossed it over the sides of the blanket.

  It was fun kissing his smile and hearing his laugh along with mine. Until his touch began to make my breath come fast and hard.

  Our eyes met, and the smiles faded as we seemed to gaze into each other’s soul. His expression was different than anything I'd seen before, almost devout?