by Maria Arnt
“Now focus on the way it smells,” he suggested.
She did. It smelled very faintly like flowers. Lavender, maybe? It was a good smell, and it calmed her further.
“It’s all right, you are safe,” he repeated. “No one will hurt you.”
“You hurt me,” she managed to say, tears spilling down her face. They burned against her skin. “You... you turned me into a vampire.”
“Yes, I did.”
“How could you?! Why?!” she demanded through the blanket.
Seth sighed, and she could feel it as his arms tightened slightly around her, could feel his breath ruffling the blanket. “If you have calmed down, I will let you out and tell you,” he said. “But you must try to stay calm, or you will have another panic attack.”
“Okay,” she lied—anything to get him away. Beyond her detachment she could still feel the strong impulse to escape, like she was a rabbit caught in a trap.
Slowly, she seemed to come back into her body, and he unwrapped the blanket. As soon as she could move her arms, Tanya reached up and scrubbed the tears away. When he pulled the blanket off her head, she realized that she was sitting, balled up, in his lap. She tried to move away, but he held on tightly.
“Stay,” he ordered, and she glared at him, but didn’t try to get away again. He would only stop her, she could tell.
They sat there a moment, her sniffing and him giving her an assessing look. “Well?” she demanded at last.
He paused. “Do you remember when I asked you if there was a way to make you stronger, whether you would take that risk?” She was starting to realize his accent wasn’t quite the same as before. It was still vaguely British, but maybe something else as well.
She scoffed. “So what, this is what you meant? Turn me into a vampire? That makes no sense!” she shouted, and then cringed. The noise had hurt her ears.
“It is precisely what I meant. And it has made you much, much stronger,” he pointed out.
“That’s not the point,” she growled. “I wanted to be stronger so I could hunt vampires.”
He smiled slyly. “And so you shall.”
“Wait. What? You turned me into a vampire so I could hunt vampires?”
“Yes, Tatiana. You had reached a point where you were close to your limits as a human. I don’t think you realize the danger you were in, how close Etienne du Lac came to killing you,” he brushed a hand over the ribs she had bruised, just below her breast. “If I hadn’t told him you would spare him if he gave you my name…”
“Don’t touch me,” she hissed, trying to squirm out of his grasp. To her surprise, he let her go. She sat on the floor opposite him, trying to think. He had set her up. Had set Etienne du Lac up, knowing she would kill him, just to make sure she got his name. He had planned all of this, just to get her here. “If that was what you wanted, why didn’t you just ask me?”
“I did ask you,” he argued.
“No, you didn’t. You know what I mean.”
He licked his lips thoughtfully. “If I had asked you if you wanted to become a vampire, would you have said yes?”
“Of course not!” she spat.
Seth shrugged, an elegant gesture on him. “And that is why I did not ask in that manner.”
Tanya buried her face in her hands, at a loss as to how to deal with this lunatic.
“Come,” Seth stood and held out a hand to her. “It’s almost sunrise, you must be tired.”
To her surprise, she was. She hadn’t been a moment ago, but now, with all the adrenaline draining from her system, she was exhausted. She glared at his hand and carefully picked herself up off the floor, crossing her arms tightly over her chest.
He pressed his lips together. “Suit yourself. Follow me.” He turned to lead her towards a black metal staircase. As they went up it, she looked around the place they were in.
It looks like one of those posh apartments they build in gutted old warehouses, except without the big plate-glass windows, she thought. Without any windows, actually. Makes sense.
“You will be staying here,” he gestured to a door as they approached it. “I hope you will be comfortable.” Seth unlocked the door with a key, let it swing open, and stepped back.
She took a step forward. Inside was a perfect replica of her apartment bedroom. She walked in, and looked around, amazed and slightly freaked at the tiniest details he had recreated, right down to the rings of water damage on her bedside table. The colors were a bit off, everything was a little too brightly colored, but otherwise, she might have been back in Missouri. Taking a breath to speak, she paused a moment.
“What is that smell?” she asked, putting a hand over her nose and mouth.
He poked his head in the door cautiously, almost like he didn’t want to invade her privacy. As if, she thought sarcastically.
After a moment, he smiled a little. “That, my dear, would be you. Or at least you when you were human. Naturally, your things still smell like that, although the scent will fade with time and use.” His voice was a little melancholy, and he closed his eyes to take a deep breath. “I think I shall miss it.”
Tanya stared around, now truly freaked out. These were not replicas of her things, they were hers, somehow transported from her locked and deadbolted apartment. “How the hell did you get my stuff?” she demanded.
He shrugged and smirked. “I can be very persuasive.”
Glaring at him, she moved around, touching things. The soft fabric of a T-shirt, the slightly sticky surface of the bedside table. She opened a dresser drawer and found the box with her keepsakes in it, Etienne’s necklace on top.
The smell seemed more familiar to her now, reminding her of homecomings after a long hunting trip, only multiplied. It brought back long forgotten memories.
Nana had died when Tanya was twelve. Since she’d never married or had children of her own, her will had specified that Tanya should get “first pick” of the things in her home. She could remember walking through the rooms, unable to believe that her Nana wouldn’t come back tomorrow. She picked things only from her bedroom: a beautiful old vanity set, the crazy quilt from her bed, and a bookshelf full of wonderful old books. She couldn’t read half of them because they were in Russian, but they smelled like Nana, and sometimes she would take one out and just flip through the pages to remember.
Sinking onto her bed, Tanya ran her hand over the old threadbare quilt, and suddenly she was fascinated by the swirling patterns of color and texture. She sat down and began smoothing her hands all over it, her breath speeding up as she started overloading again.
“Careful,” Seth warned, snatching up her hands. “Close your eyes, and just touch,” he instructed.
Slightly panicked, she did as he suggested, and he let her hands fall back to the quilt. “Slowly,” he advised. She drew her hands down the quilt, marveling at the variety of textures.
“Now,” his voice took on a mesmerizing tone. “Open your eyes and look at them, one at a time.”
Tanya did so, recognizing old jeans, a sundress, pieces of her mother’s wedding gown, an old pillow.
“Now try to smell, and sort out each scent.”
Lowering her head, she breathed in deeply, searching for the smell she knew should be there, the softness of lilacs that Nana had always had about her. She caught a faint whiff, old and stale, but there was something else overpowering it. She tilted her head to the side, frowning.
“What is it, Tatiana?” he asked softly. She hadn’t noticed that he had sat on the opposite edge of her bed, his hand trailing over the quilt. It kicked her right out of the trance she was in.
“Out,” she said firmly. When he didn’t budge, she tried to reach out and shove him, overshooting and landing on the floor in an unorganized heap. “Get out of my room!” she shouted.
He stood, looking like he wasn’t sure what she meant.
“GET OUT!” she screamed, and then clapped her hands over her ears.
“Of course,” he said stiffly,
and left, closing the door behind him quietly as if nothing had happened.
Picking herself up carefully, Tanya stood and began to ransack her things for the source of the out-of-place smell. It was as if her entire room had been mysteriously transported to this prison; every last thing was exactly where she had left it. As she drew closer, the scent growing stronger, she began to realize what it might be. Opening the bottom drawer of her vanity, she found a bottle of perfume. She removed the cap, and suddenly the noxious fumes filled the air, making her nose burn and her eyes water.
Well, I might as well cry, then, Tanya thought helplessly. She never wore the lilac perfume and had only bought it because it made her think of Nana. But now it smelled nothing like her or lilacs, just a chemical mixture that was as much like the flowers as chalk was cheese. She had to get rid of it, couldn’t stand to be near it another moment. Capping it, she looked to the window.
Except the window wasn’t there. It was the only thing missing from the picture, the blue curtains framing a blank space on the wall where it should have been. Right, she remembered, no sunlight. Looking down at the bottle, her heart ached. She didn’t want to get rid of her favorite reminder, but it looked like that... monster had left her no choice.
Storming over to the door, she stared at the handle. There was no lock on this side, not even a hole in the doorknob. Which meant it could only be unlocked from the outside. Does he mean to lock me up in here? she wondered, horrified and outraged at the same time. Her hand shook as she reached down to test if he had already locked it.
The knob turned effortlessly, and the door swung open to reveal Seth, leaning patiently against the walkway railing. “Yes?” he asked in his damnably polite British accent. He had the audacity to smile invitingly at her.
“Go to hell,” she spat, and threw the perfume at him before slamming the door.
7
A fortunate thing that door is steel, Seth mused, otherwise she might have broken it. He had caught the bottle of perfume out of the air before it could shatter on the stone floor below. Now as he sat in his favorite chair, in the study, he pondered the small artifact.
The label read Lilac Breezes, but like most modern perfumes the scent was nothing like the flower it was named for. He imagined that his Tatiana, now gifted with a much more accurate sense of smell, had detected this as well. But why did it seem so important to her? He knew she never wore it.
He closed his eyes and thought. Lilacs. Her elderly aunt, the one she called ‘Nana,’ had grown lilacs in her yard. He still remembered the smell of them as he watched her play in the garden. Smell was a powerful memory trigger—perhaps she kept it as a memento mori?
Seth put the bottle away in a drawer of his desk and ran his hand over the smooth grain of the mahogany top. It was a comforting feeling, along with the smell of leather and books that pervaded the room. Tatiana’s awakening had gone more or less to plan—he had expected her to be angry, outraged even. But he had not anticipated it would bother him so much.
Breathing deeply, he settled back in his chair and looked around the study. The architect he had hired to renovate this warehouse had done an excellent job. When Seth had asked that there be no windows, that every door be perfectly sealed, the man hadn’t even blinked. Then again, Seth had chosen him because he specialized in underground luxury shelters for paranoid eccentrics. The architect had simply installed a top of the line ventilation system and found creative ways to make up for the lack of natural light.
Once Seth had calmed sufficiently, he left the study to disassemble the structure that had held Tatiana aloft during the extended process of changing her. He had been so excited, so impatient for her to arise that he had forgotten that once she did, he would no longer enjoy the closeness to her it afforded him. Before, he could touch her whenever he wanted, could stay within arm’s reach night and day, and take care of her every need. Now she would want to assert her independence again, as well she should. Every child must eventually grow up, he reminded himself.
When the task was complete, he went upstairs to check on Tatiana. The sun was well past risen, so he knew she would be deeply unconscious. She lay on her bed, curled up tight in a ball. That she held such a pose made it clear to him just how upset she was. The rest that the newly-made experienced during the day was profound, and she should have relaxed completely.
He couldn’t change her clothes when she was balled up like that, so he pulled the covers out from under her and tucked her in. The next few days will likely be very trying for the both of us... he sighed.
Tanya spent the next day—night, she corrected herself—locked up in her room. Not that Seth had locked the door, or that she was able to. But it did swing outwards from the room, so as soon as she woke up, she put her vanity chair under the doorknob.
Like that would stop him, she thought darkly. She knew how strong vampires were, he could snap the antique carved chair into kindling with his bare hands. To make matters worse, she stubbed her toe—hard—on the bed frame as she crawled back to the warmth of the quilt.
To her surprise, however, the chair never had to put up a fight. By the clock on her bedside stand, she had been awake 15 minutes when there was a knock at the door. Not a loud, demanding knock, but it made her jump all the same. It was a polite, brief knock that said If you have not yet awakened, please do so.
She ignored it.
“Tatiana?” Seth’s voice was muffled by the door, but she had no difficulty hearing him.
“Go away. Leave me alone,” Tanya told the door. She wanted to scream at him, but all of her fear and rage had been exhausted, and she was numb. She did not cry, although she sort of felt as if she should. She just stayed curled up under the covers and tried to imagine she really was at home in her room, and not trapped in some twisted nightmare.
Much later, he returned. “Tatiana, the sun will be up in two hours. Are you sure you don’t want to come down for a little while?” he sounded so unsure, and that made her angrier.
She threw a hairbrush at the door, and it shattered on contact.
“Perhaps we shall speak tomorrow night, then,” he suggested archly, and she heard his footsteps on the walkway as he left.
Seth made his way back downstairs, struggling to control his anger. How long is she going to play this game? He knew, though, that he had already pushed her too much. He could not force her to accept her situation, only she could decide what to do with the opportunity he had given her.
As he made his way through the seldom-used kitchen in search of a good cup of calming tea, a small noise alerted him. Pulling the phone from it’s hiding place in one of the upper cupboards, he checked the message.
Seth frowned. If only Tatiana would come round to the idea and start cooperating, he wouldn’t have to go through this charade.
He sent off the text, hoping that she would not make a liar of him.
When she finally fell back asleep, Tanya had the nightmare again. This time it was different.
None of the details had changed. Every moment was preserved, the ratty oversized sweatshirt the girl wore, the greasy hair and dead, metal eyes of the man who bit her. It was like that horrible commercial you’ve seen a thousand times, but it’s on live TV so you can’t skip it.
What was different was her.
It was like she was watching a movie through her own eyes—she screamed but felt no fear. She cried but wasn’t sad. She even felt the pain, but it was distant and didn’t worry her. Her emotions were a blank—she had replayed this moment in her mind so many times, and suddenly it had lost all its gravity.
The strangest thing was, because she wasn’t terrified, she noticed things she had never picked up on before. Like how hungry and poorly cared for the vampires looked. With an impartial eye, she could see they were barely more than a few decades old. How Jake’s transfixed face was caught somewhere between agony and ecstasy.
But when she woke up, the thing that stuck in her mind was the man who had found her. She
had never seen him, had been too shocked to look away from Jake. She had never even thought to ask who it was that had called 911, she always assumed it was someone local. Her hometown in northern Missouri was not very big, almost everyone knew everybody else.
She had never questioned why her rescuer had known her name. But now, as she recalled the softest hint of an accent, she remembered again that only Nana called her Tatiana.
And Seth.
Tanya lay in the pitch-black darkness, and for one delirious moment she thought all of it, everything from the attack on, had been one really weird dream.
Slowly, she pushed up her sleeve.
There, on the inside of her elbow, was a crescent-shaped scar.
Tanya squeezed her eyes shut, pushing back the tears. She hadn’t really believed it, anyway.
8
Tanya wasn’t sure how long she lay there, thinking. Feeling. She was still numb, mostly, but deep within her, some unnamed tempest was brewing. She needed to decide what she was going to do, but she was at a loss. At some point, she was interrupted by that same irritatingly polite knock. She was tempted to roll over and yell at Seth to go away again, but she had too many questions, and she was fairly sure he was the only one with the answers.
So she got up, struggling to disentangle herself from the covers, and went to the door. Shoving the chair holding it nominally closed out of the way, she wrenched open the door, but then winced.
“Ah, yes, the light.” Seth moved so his lean body blocked the bulb that was directly opposite her door. “How are you feeling this evening?”
Right. Evening. She was still thinking morning. How was she feeling? “Um. Calmer?” She shrugged, still out of it.
“Excellent. I imagine you have many questions to ask me, so I will meet you downstairs when you’ve freshened up,” he said in a chipper voice, and then left.
Tanya stood at the door for a long moment, confused. Then she went to go change.
That ended up being a lot harder than she expected. She went through half her closet before she found something that didn’t make her skin crawl when she touched it. Pulling off her clothes and putting on new ones almost sent her into another spaz-out session.