Gods, I felt as wretched and helpless as ever.
Of course, some tiny, evil voice within me whispered, you could tell the vampires to kill him, and maybe they would succeed. That man would be dead. That man with his cruel smile and shit-brown shoes would be dead and your family would leave the village.
None of us would be safe from the end times anymore. We would just be together and I could read to my little sisters and listen to music and learn magic with proper wands and thoroughly enjoy every moment we had left without Father Joshua controlling us.
“I see that look in your eye,” Thom said. “You just saw freedom on the horizon, didn’t you? When you’re growing up, people tell you all sorts of lies, and if you’re lucky, one day…the dawn breaks and you see them all for what they are. Those lies are there to control you.”
“Okay,” I said. “I—I want my wand back. And I don’t want him attached to it. So…”
“We’ll do what we have to do, Tulip, but don’t worry, I won’t tell the gods you said so,” Rayner said, with a slow smile.
Chapter Seventeen
Jie
“Unfortunately, it’s entirely true what she says,” Silvus said. “The village is surrounded by powerful wards on all sides and we can’t just hop the fence. But, there is a gate and I could place a shield on us so they couldn’t detect that we are vampires.”
“We can’t all go,” I said. “That’s way too suspicious. Just send me.”
“Why you?” Rayner asked.
“I’m the only person who knows how to act like a normal human,” I said, gesturing to my modern clothes. I leaned on the kitchen counter like I was leaning out the window of our car. “‘Hello—excuse me, my GPS seems to be acting up. Could you tell me how to get back to 120 going east? Cool. Thank you. Is there anywhere to just get a cup of coffee and hit the bathroom here?’ If it was you, Silvus, you’d be like, ‘Good morrow, sir, my carriage seems to have broken down despite this smashing new macadam pavement and if I could just have a spot of tea’—fuck!” Silvus zapped me in the gut with his wand, which I probably deserved.
“He’s right,” Thom said, shrugging. “Just let him scout.”
Thom and I always stuck up for each other’s plans.
“I don’t like you going alone,” Silvus said. “Thom, you go with him and just keep your mouth shut.”
Rayner nodded.
Lisbeth—or Alissa, or as I called her, my little Plum or Plum Blossom—looked worried, but she had looked worried since we chased her through the woods. She’d forgive us before long, but as her story unfolded I thought, we probably should have been more gentle. I think she wanted to say some word of warning, but then decided against it. Maybe she didn’t care if we lived or died, at least not yet.
Silvus loaded us with wards and we hid as many weapons and magical objects under our clothes and in the car as we could, while Rayner criticized our ragged clothing. One of Rayner’s great and perpetual mistakes was his inability to adapt. He somehow didn’t notice that we were in the woods, not the city. His mind seemed stuck in the eighteenth century at best, and Silvus wasn’t much better.
“It must be especially strange for you,” I said, as Thomas lit a cigarette. “Seeing her as a woman.”
“Yeah, strange,” he said. “And I’m horny as a bull elk.”
“That much, huh?”
“Well, I never meant to spend my life in a world of cocks,” Thomas said. “Gol darn, but when I signed up for this I was promised a girl and I ended up never laying a hand on the fairer sex again. But it must be strange for you too. Li Mei, she was yours, warn’t she?” Thom could pass as a modern cowboy reasonably well, but he tended to slip in dialect from every time and every place he’d been, which was a lot of places.
“Yeah. I’d never say it to Rayner’s face, but she was mine.” I gripped the steering wheel, the familiar feel of the car and the smell of the leather interior briefly seeming strange as I thought back to the girl I loved. “It was all new then, anyway. I felt so damn strong, like I owned the whole world. I had no idea there were so many powerful fucking wizards and shit.”
Memories are strongest when you’re young. I’m sure that’s always true. I couldn’t tell you a single thing I was doing in 2009, but I could tell you every detail of that day in 1837 when I first kissed Li Mei and slid off every last silken garment she was wearing except her tiny slippers. I could remember the way her hair felt sliding through my fingers, the way she sighed, the way her soft pink mouth tasted. I would have cut off my ear to relive that night.
That was the only time she wasn’t of European heritage, the only time she spoke no European language, so Rayner and Silvus needed a man like me to make sure her every need was met. But I couldn’t believe my luck that the man like me was me. Rayner and Silvus seemed burdened by their immortality and blood lust.
Me and Thomas? Nah. We considered it the best thing that could ever happen to us. What else was I doing? I came from a family of sailors. My ancestors worked hard, didn’t make much money, and often died on the job. It was hard to say goodbye to my family, who had all the tender affection for each other that Li Mei’s husband’s clan lacked, but I needed more. I wanted to give my mother enough money that she could rest in her old age, and eventually, I did just that. But I never saw her again.
I had trouble thinking of myself as a genius, but I guess I must have been, because during my years of ports and docks and travel, I picked up languages so easily that soon, men in charge were pulling me over to speak to the Europeans. I had some English, some French, some Spanish…and in the two hundred years since, I’d always been able to blend in. Once I convinced everyone at a hotel that I was David Chang from the restaurant Momofuku. I don’t even fucking look a thing like David Chang. Give me a week anywhere in the world, and I’ll figure out how to talk to people.
With Rayner, I was offered a new life. Immortality. Strength. And a woman more beautiful and refined than I ever expected to have.
My little plum. She was so broken at first. Rayner was in a fury over it. To him it was like seeing a loved one torn away from him and seeing her come back unrecognizable.
“Rayner was so mad about what was done to her feet, I don’t know if he could ever make love to her without thinking about it. I didn’t quite get it then, because I was used to it. My mother had bound feet. I just thought, Li Mei suffered for this and if we don’t even appreciate how perfect her feet are, it would be an insulting waste of her sacrifice and dishonor her. Well, I get it now. It was pretty barbaric. The way women live now is much better, in China and most other countries too. They’re bolder and they expect to do everything men do.”
“It seems natural now,” Thomas agreed. “Boy, could Bertie ride and shoot and he was quite a man when we found him. But then there was Lisbeth hiding underneath. I’m not sure it would have been half so fun if he’d been a woman. The way he used to blush while he held his head high, betrayed by his own stiff cock, and then we’d all be holding him down. Felt like breaking in a wild horse.”
“Stop it already,” I said. Now I was getting a stiff cock as my mind turned over the contrast of delicate Li Mei with her mincing, swaying walk and shy manners and feminine ways, her readiness to submit to me because that was how she’d been raised, and Bertie’s taut muscles straining against our hold while Silvus called him ‘pet’ and Thomas tied knots around his wrists, until he was so turned on that he had tears in his eyes. “Well…I liked it all.”
“But more’n anything I miss hearing Bertie just singing,” Thomas said. “Or seeing him working on the yard, digging holes for his apple trees. All those things he used to do that made the place seem like a home. I guess a woman now might want to go to work somewhere.”
“Alissa isn’t…like other women, though,” I said. “She seems more like women back then.”
“Must be that man,” Thomas said. “I wonder if it’s good enough to kill him. Maybe we ought to tie him up and make him suffer first.”
“Rayner isn’t that patient.”
“Well…I am.” Thomas raised his eyebrows and grinned at me. “And so are you, old friend, ain’tcha?”
“Yep.”
By the time we got to the village, we were practically frothing to taste the blood of the villagers, but I knew we couldn’t.
“Be good,” I told Thom. “Play it cool.”
“Huhn,” he scoffed.
Being a vampire kicked your brain into overdrive. All you really cared about was fresh blood, and if you couldn’t get blood, sex was the next best thing, and if you could get both, that was the best of all. If you couldn’t get either, drink and drugs was about all you had left, and they lowered your sense of danger enough that you’d risk a lot more to get the first two things. This was how vampires often ended up living short lives, but Rayner and Silvus kept us out of trouble. We had a reason to live, so we behaved ourselves, but at times like these I knew Thom was dreaming of letting loose and damn the consequences. As soon as we pulled up I thought, these people look like assholes.
The two men watching the gate were wearing tidy suits and had short hair and clean-shaven, boyish faces. I could see a few women wearing the same dowdy black dresses and lace caps Alissa wore hurrying out of sight. They were all white people, even though witches and warlocks were usually even more integrated than mundanes.
“Cults always dress so badly,” I said.
I rolled down my window and lowered my sunglasses as the boys walked up looking tough, like they just graduated cop school or something.
“Good morning. I think I’m lost.”
“Yeah, you are. You’re going to want to turn around.”
“Man, I’m just trying to find 120.”
“You need to turn around.”
“Can you give me directions?”
The boy got this look on his face that made it very obvious he had no idea where the nearest state road or highway was, or what it was called. “No,” he said.
“We’re starvin’, man,” Thomas said. “You got a sandwich or a bag of chips or something?” He offered a twenty.
What the hell are you thinking? We can’t eat.
Oh, crap. That was exactly what he was thinking. Proving we weren’t vampires, even if it meant we were going to suffer for it later.
“No.”
“What’s going on?” A couple more men had shown up and one of them nudged the boy out of the way and leaned in with a smile that sent a chill down my spine.
Do you know how hard it is to send a chill down the spine of a two hundred year old bloodsucking Chinese pirate? I’d fought demons and been in districts so seedy they made Blade Runner look like a wacky 80s robot romance.
This guy, he was up there. It was a very polite menace, and that kind skeeved me out the most.
“Hey, just need a bite to eat real bad,” Thomas said. “If you gotta pack of cigarettes I’ll kiss ya.”
The man laughed disdainfully. “What’s your name?”
“Jim. Jim’s Window Repair,” Thomas said. “This is my assistant.” He smirked at me. I can lie too.
Your ‘assistant’? Asshole.
“I hear you wanted some food.” He handed us each a bag of Grandma Utz’s potato chips and looked expectant as we tore them open.
Eating. Food. Fuck Thomas. Vampires are strong, agile killing machines but they can’t digest food worth a damn.
I looked at him. You first.
He curled a chip in his mouth like he was still human. “Mm-mm. Lard fried. The only way to do it.”
This fucking cult creep was watching him and looking at me more suspiciously. I bit down on one. My teeth weren’t even used to this anymore.
“Thanks,” I said. “So—did you have a local map, by any chance?”
“I’m sorry, Jim. Jim’s assistant,” the man said. “Hard for you walking corpses to eat, isn’t it?”
“It’s easy for us to eat. It’s hard for us to shit.” Thomas grinned. “But hey, being human, it wasn’t always a walk in the park either. I knew a guy who used to make a chili we called outhouse inferno.”
“Ugh,” I said, throwing the rest of the chips at him.
“We don’t have anything. You need to turn around.” The man I was assuming was Father Joshua clapped a hand on my shoulder and leaned close. “So you won this round, but if I were you, I’d quit while I’m ahead. Tell her that her little sisters might need a woman around soon because I’m not sure how long her father will live.”
“I’m just trying to find 120.” I wasn’t going to play these macho games. I backed the car up a little and did a three-point turn while they all watched.
“Well, he sure thinks he’s hot shit,” Thomas said. He slid a cigarette out for me. Silvus was going to yell at us for stinking up the car but I let it dangle sideways from my lips while Thomas lit it.
“Yeah, he does,” I said. “I’m not even sure I’ll enjoy torturing him if it means I need to look at his putzy little face.”
“Heh. I will. Oh, I like ‘em best that way. Makes me feel like I’m really doing society a favor.”
“I’m a little worried he might really kill her dad.”
“If he did, then he loses a bargaining chip.”
“Yeah, but he has two more. Fuuuck.”
“You scared of him, Jie?” Thomas whacked my arm. “We’ve seen worse than him.”
“Yeah,” I said.
We probably went four miles in silence and then I said, “I don’t know, I had a bad feeling about him, though. I’ve met a lot of warlocks and he smelled funny. The fact is, he hid her from Silvus for all these years. I know you’ll pretend none of this worries you.”
“Nah, I ain’t worried. He won’t kill us, and if he does, well, it’s been a good run. One day at a time. Live in the moment. You should try being a Buddhist.”
“I’m the one who told you what Buddhism was.”
He gave me a sly smile. “This is what you love me for.”
Chapter Eighteen
Alissa
When Jie and Thomas left after breakfast, Rayner lingered at the table, running his eyes over me. Silvus gathered my dishes and put them in the sink with some bowls and glasses. “Rayner, why don’t you dry?”
“I can help,” I said. Anything to get their attention off me so much.
Silvus handed me a cloth, shirtsleeves rolled up over pale but surprisingly strong arms. Rayner launched himself from his chair and paced, quiet and agitated. He seemed unable to think of anything but me, and the way he looked at me burned through me like fire. I was blushing furiously as I dreaded the next time I had to be alone with him. I wouldn’t escape a second time. He would touch me again. When he touched me between the legs…
Very different from Father Joshua.
I wondered how I would feel if I had never met Father Joshua.
I wondered how long he would wait before he drank my blood again. He wouldn’t want to kill me, but they said the soup would help me recover from blood loss. How quickly?
Or maybe Silvus would get to drink my blood next. They seemed to have a schedule.
I was shaking a little as I realized Silvus was watching me now.
“Careful, now,” he said. “I can smell you getting wet.”
I didn’t know exactly what he meant. But I knew he wasn’t talking about the dishwater.
“I’m not to touch you until Rayner does,” he said. “Don’t make it so hard.”
“I don’t want you to touch me.”
He laughed. “I know what you’re afraid of, pet. Every time, you are afraid of something. Marguerite wondered why two wealthy men wanted her. She was afraid it was a trick and we were just going to kill you. Li Mei worried about leaving her home country. Bertie worried about being found out and ostracized for his male lovers. You are worried that we want to control you the way this man did.” He handed me a bowl. “We’re not like that. We want you to have all the happiness you dream of.”
“As long as it
’s with you.”
“Of course. But we know you’ll be happy with us.”
“Because your venom has an aphrodisiac.”
“Is that what they told you about us?”
“Isn’t it true?”
“It is. However—the effect of an aphrodisiac is very different from love. It’s only there so you find it pleasurable to give us your blood. Otherwise, I’m sure even if you did love us, you might find that more painful than enjoyable. That’s really it. That isn’t why you stay.”
“Why do I stay?”
“We’re your family,” he said. “Every day you’re with us, it will all feel more and more familiar. And when we touch you, we unlock parts of yourself that you thought were lost. We will wring from you a complete surrender of your body, mind and soul, and you will beg us for more.” He brushed a finger down my forehead and gave my lips a small pat. “It stirs inside you already, and that’s why you are so wet between the legs, pet. Your soul remembers. I will give you everything you’ve ever wanted, and in return…I will demand quite a lot as well.”
Rayner leaving the room was no better. Silvus might have been even worse. And the more he spoke, the more I felt my body responding with an urgent throb, almost like I was being tugged toward him by some invisible force I couldn’t stop. I didn’t understand this feeling when I was so afraid of these men. I was sure I didn’t want anything to do with them.
“Clan meeting.” Jie had just walked in the door and thrown down the car keys.
“Did you reach the village?” Silvus asked.
“Yes.”
“Did you see my family?”
“No, Plum. Sorry.”
This was clearly something they didn’t want me to hear.
“Tell me what happened!” I said. “It’s my village. If you want me to trust you, you’d better include me in clan meetings.”
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