“Most probably. I remember my father was huge with a full beard, along with chest and back hair. My mom used to joke that it was like lying with a bear. I didn’t quite make it to thirty so I will never know.”
“Was he blond also?”
“No. My mom was the blond in the family and I took after her. Dad’s side was the Cossack side—the rough-hewn peasants who tilled the fields.”
Yuri glanced at the clock next to the bed and sighed.
“Alas, we need to get ready to head to the airport. Our flight will leave in slightly more than an hour. Even though I can do what you call the mind-fuck to get them to express us through security, we still need to be there before the plane leaves the ground.”
“We should shower together then, huh? You know...to save water and all.” Keisha smiled up at him and was pleased with the leer he gave her back.
“I did shower before but perhaps you are right. Even though most mortals wouldn’t notice that we smell like our fluids mingled when we just had sex, I would like to keep that fact to ourselves.”
“Isn’t there time to do much more than just get clean?”
Yuri grinned at the disappointment in her voice.
“There will be plenty of time for that in the future. In fact, we have only begun to explore the first level of sexual play that I want to experience with you. There is so much more to come.”
Keisha leered back at him. “Then let’s get into that shower. The sooner we get this trip over with, the sooner we can get back to discovering just how sensitive every cell of my body has become.”
She pushed herself up and off of the bed. Yuri followed her up, gently slapping her on the butt as he loomed over her. “I can’t wait.”
She giggled as they made their way into the bathroom.
Chapter Nine
The first thing Yuri and Keisha did once they located their seats on the plane was to visit the bathroom. Yuri turned out the light and unlocked the door.
A short while later a woman pushed into the tiny room and turned on the light. By the time the room was bright, Yuri already had his fangs in her neck. He spent only a few minutes, then offered her to Keisha.
“Drink. You will need all of your strength. Create a sexual encounter for her involving vampires. Many women love to read erotic ménage stories. Give her one to remember.”
Keisha looked longingly at the blood dripping from the wound.
“What if I take too much?”
“I am watching. I will stop you.”
She needed no other encouragement. She took the woman’s shoulders and turned her around. Keisha gently placed her lips over the open wound for what vampires refer to as the kiss of life. As she drank she pondered what to do next.
Something in my spit is making it not clot. He said to create a sexual memory. How? She’s going to remember this and me. What do I do now?
Yuri pulled the woman pulled away from her and Keisha snarled. Yuri glared at her and she quieted. She watched as he placed his lips against the wound and licked gently. The woman sighed happily. He sat her on the toilet stool, leaning against the wall. She looked like she was asleep.
Yuri took Keisha’s arm and whispered into her ear, “Now we leave her to remember that she passed out from the change in oxygen when she got into the bathroom. She had an extremely enjoyable daydream about two sexy vampires who had their way with her. She had a good time. She won’t notice the marks until they are healed. She’ll chalk them up to bug bites from something that bit her while she was unconscious.”
Yuri let Keisha leave the bathroom first, and then he followed her a few minutes later. They watched together as the woman walked unsteadily back to her seat a couple of rows ahead of them. Before the plane had even taken off she snored loudly.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know how to create anything...” Keisha began quietly.
Yuri smiled and patted the back of her hand, answering too quietly for most mortals to be able to hear, “You will learn. Better to practice on willing donors, though. I should have thought of that. No harm done. How do you feel?”
“Warm and fed. I feel strength moving through me. The blood doesn’t seem to need any heartbeats to move it around.”
“Not so gross this time?”
Keisha shook her head.
“Good. Now we can enjoy the flight.”
Keisha settled back against the airplane seat and looked around.
“So, this is what first class looks like, huh?”
“Yes. Haven’t you ever flown it before?”
She shook her head. “Hell no. I’ve only flown to present papers to international symposiums. Researchers are the grunt-work peons, so the best we can hope for is that they pay for our flights. Back before I worked for this lab, I used to have to buy my own tickets. Believe me; some of the pieces of crap I flew on were barely still flight-worthy.”
“How fortunate for me that they got you up and down safely,” Yuri remarked dryly. “Already I feel as if my eternity would be much diminished had I not discovered you.”
“Discovered? What am I? Some sort of lab rat to you?” Keisha’s eyes flashed with quick sparks of anger, yellow swirling in the center around the pupils.
Yuri admired her eyes for an instant before he replied. “Your eyes are beautiful when you’re aroused,” he murmured in a low voice, which tickled her right down to her sex. Her inner muscles clenched in reaction to remembering their earlier shared pleasure. One of his hands covered hers on the armrest and caressed the skin of her fingers.
“Stop that,” she said but the angry edge had left her voice.
“To answer your question—I mean that I discovered you through your writings. I told you, I have asked questions since I was turned but no one knew or even cared about the answers. I have sought out the oldest ones I could find and even they had no idea how we came to be. My instincts tell me it is something in the blood, since we are all about the blood. Just what that is, I need someone with your special skills and intelligence to find out. When I followed the links to your published papers, I was excited to read your words and fascinated by what you had already learned. I engineered a meeting so I could begin a conversation with you, hoping that would lead to a friendship which might let me ask for your help.”
“Seriously? You planned on asking me to study some of your blood to discover how you became a vampire? How did you plan on breaking that to me? Gradually, or all at once over dinner?”
Yuri grinned at her. “Actually I hadn’t thought that far ahead. I was just pleased to track you down and get that assistant of yours to introduce us. Once we started talking, it was all I could do to concentrate fully on what we discussed because you are so incredibly intelligent that I was afraid you would realize I was a fraud and walk away from me.”
“I guess you couldn’t really go through the official channels, even if you offered to throw big gobs of money at the lab.”
“Uh...no. Not that I don’t have big gobs of money, because I do. Living as long as we do allows us to begin by inheriting from our own family members, then using the mind-fuck to continue amassing more. No amount of money or mind-fuckery would have gotten you to take samples of my blood and study them...nor would I want it to be done through official channels. We have safely coexisted with mortals for generations by keeping to ourselves. I see no need to threaten our safety by exposing ourselves to public scrutiny.”
“Wait a minute. Does that mean all of the authors who write vampire-related stuff know one or more of us? Or are they just making things up?”
“Pues.” Yuri shrugged slowly and elaborately. “No sé.”
Keisha shot him an amused look.
“What’s with all of the español, señor? I thought you were Russian, not Hispanic.”
“I am...or I was. We are heading down to see one of the older ones, who was originally from Spain. He speaks fluent English now but retains an old-world accent. Besides, there are some things that are idioms which don’t trans
late well from one language to any other. I really have no idea if any authors actually know any vampires or if they are totally writing fiction. I used to think that Anne Rice must know at least one of us but her describing us as sexless eunuchs was a cruel joke. Possibly she was hurt by being loved and left? Who knows? At any rate, I know what I am and what is and isn’t possible for me. The fact that so many women and men are fascinated by the allure of eternal life, forever young and hot vampires, and mind-blowing sex with the undead just makes things so much easier for me. The mind-fuckery has a handle—if you will—to hang on and the easiest thing to do is convince them they are having sex,—even when they aren’t. The blood flows quicker as they get more excited.”
Yuri’s smile was partly mischievous and partly malicious. Keisha grinned in response.
“See? Even though I’m not particularly happy about how it happened, I’m glad you made me one of you before you told me about yourself. I can’t imagine how frightened I would be by your casual admission of things like that if I worried that I was going to be on the dinner menu.”
Yuri’s answering grin was amused.
“You are precious. I am happily anticipating the many years I intend to spend learning all there is to know about you. Not only are you intelligent beyond my imagining, but you have a quirky sense of humor and can make even me laugh. Believe me, us Russians are—by nature—a pretty dour and pessimistic lot. I need someone like you to balance me with your optimism and your laughter.”
“You might see in me what you want to see. I haven’t had an easy life and it’s hard to laugh when you are working twenty-four-seven on research you feel driven to complete.”
“Why is that? What is the reason that you work so hard on discovering the root of intelligence? What’s your personal connection?”
Keisha shrank down in her chair and frowned.
“My past,” she mumbled.
Yuri leaned forward and took her hand in his again, caressing her fingers.
“Don’t,” she began. “I won’t be able to think if you keep doing that.”
“I’m only attempting to reassure you while you think of and talk about things that are unpleasant for you.”
“I guess...okay...” She sat up straighter. “I was born in the ghetto...it almost seems like a cliché, doesn’t it? Poor black child gets scholarships due to her scary-smartness, then earns multiple degrees and goes into a life of research—only to discover to her chagrin that research scientists are the red-headed stepchildren of the science world. The respect and acclaim I thought would be mine has eluded me. I barely made enough money to pay off all of my student loans. Meanwhile, my brothers and sisters are still mostly in the ghetto...the ones who aren’t dead. Some got into drugs, either using or dealing or both. One brother is an alcoholic and keeps getting DUIs. It’s only a matter of time until he kills someone...maybe even himself. I look at them all and wonder why I’m not still there? The only difference I can see is that I was born with a bigger brain, with more of whatever it is that makes a person intelligent. Many of them are street-smart, with common sense, but none of them had any ambition to use education as their stepping stone out of poverty.”
Yuri’s face reflected only compassion.
“So, you wanted to discover how to help them all by synthesizing the brain chemicals which would make them more intelligent?”
“Yes. Is that really too much to ask? I look around these days at what the popular culture is fixated on and I cringe with embarrassment and disgust. Black folks used to value intelligence. White and black people used to at least pretend to be educated when they weren’t and everyone aimed to better themselves by reading and discussing things of value...ideas like freedom and equality. Now all anyone wants to talk about is which celebrity has a baby-bump and who the daddy might be...or which celebrity clothing line or perfume is the next big thing.
“No one cares whether or not our country is going to hell in a hand basket because we’ve lost the momentum which used to make us aim higher. The only time we look up is when we push others to accept the myths that our ancestors used to comfort themselves when their fear of dying got too big. No one wants to head for the stars to live on other planets. Instead they’re too busy surfing the net, looking for extreme porn. We have all of the knowledge of humanity available at the click of a mouse and we use it to access social networks so we can talk about each other.”
Tears leaked out of Keisha’s eyes. She gratefully took the cocktail napkin from under his water glass that Yuri handed her. The tears were blood-red so she pushed the ball of tissue into her pocket when she was done and tried to regain her composure.
Yuri regarded her silently for a time, and then he leaned over to say, “Small minds discuss other people. Average minds discuss events. Great minds discuss ideas.”
Keisha’s eyes widened in surprise.
“That’s from Eleanor Roosevelt, right?”
Yuri nodded. “Yes. She was a very intelligent woman...way ahead of her time. These days she could have been so much more...accomplished so many more great things. She didn’t want eternity. She was content to leave her mark then move on.”
“You knew her?”
He nodded.
She glared at him. “You’re not going to get all superior on me and expect me to believe that you’ve met every important historical person who lived during the time you’ve been alive, are you? I mean, that’s going to get really old, really quickly. I may not be over a hundred years old but I refuse to be patronized.”
Yuri’s lips twitched with amusement.
“Yes, I see that you aren’t the kind of woman who would take that lying down...or standing up...or even bent over my sofa. No my dear, I don’t intend to throw my considerable years of experience in your face. After all, if I am so great then I would have found the answers I seek a long time ago, right?”
She nodded decisively. “That’s right, Mister. You need me, remember?”
He leaned over even further to whisper into her ear, “I do indeed.” His fangs gently nipped her earlobe and his tongue shot out to lick the drops of blood.
Keisha tried to get over the shock of that little act. It made every cell in her body vibrate with excitement. She crossed her legs protectively but that just compressed her clit between her thighs and made things worse. Yuri’s low chuckle made her turn to glare at him, aware that he knew what she felt. She tried to think up a witty, yet snarky, quip to toss at him when the captain made an announcement over the intercom.
“Ladies and gentlemen. We are about to land in Tucson.”
Yuri leaned over, patting her on the back of her hand.
“I look forward to sparring again with you, when we have more time.”
“Fine,” Keisha huffed. “As long as you don’t plan on winning every argument by appealing to my sexual appetite.”
“Which is growing by the minute, I can assure you. No, you are not just the woman of my dreams during my every waking moment. You are also the formidable intelligence I have sought for many years. I won’t forget that for a moment, nor will I risk losing you for any reason.” He stopped, amused by the shocked look on Keisha’s face.
“Growing every minute?”
“Yes, my little newbie. Growing stronger in the blood enhances all kinds of sensual delights. However, we have more important things to talk about now, so listen to me.”
She forced herself to concentrate.
“We are going to be visiting two of the older ones. One is only a few hundred years older than me. He was born in Russia also so we have the bond of national kinship. His lover for centuries is Hispanic. He no longer goes by his birth name but changed it to reflect the many years they’ve lived in Mexico and Central America. His name is Casimiro Pavlenko—his first name translates roughly to ‘famous destroyer’.
“The other is much older...possibly seven hundred years—give or take a few decades. He’s the oldest one I have ever met. He came to the New World back before i
t was known to anyone except those who already lived here and a few hardy souls who made a one-way voyage across the sea. His name is Apolinar Villalba, and his first name translates as ‘the destroyer’. They regard the similarity in the meanings of their names as being part of the fate that drew them together.”
“What? That they both want to destroy things? Sound like typical macho-men to me. The alpha types who trample over everyone else and then wonder why no one likes them.”
“Yes. Please remember—whereas I find your sarcasm entertaining, they won’t. They insisted on meeting you and plan to share blood with you.”
“Ew? Do I have to?”
Yuri sighed.
“I’m afraid so. They want to probe your intelligence but have sworn to me that you won’t be harmed. I have no idea what they will offer to you in return. Usually when we share blood, the drinker is in control of what he or she learns from your brain while the blood is connected. In your case, they will be in control both times.”
Keisha’s voice was small. “You’re afraid for me, aren’t you?”
He nodded.
“Then I’m terrified.”
“Don’t be. As I said, I have their sworn word that you won’t be harmed, either here or anywhere else—ever—by them or any of their agents. Believe me, you don’t live as long as I have without learning how much detail you have to put into agreements like this. I tried to cover all of the bases. If you are threatened, I stand prepared to die for you.”
“Can they do that?”
“If they choose. There really is no point to it. They have nothing to gain from ending my life. They are already feared and respected due to their advanced years. Most of the younger ones have never heard of them except in whispers about the Ancient Ones who’ve lived long enough to become indestructible themselves, while gaining the knowledge of how to cause other vampires to die a final death. Those who know them, like me, are far and few between. I have met Casimiro a few times...shared blood with him each time. His is an ordered mind—filled with numbers, statistics, and math formulas, the stuff of his dreams. Apolinar is totally opposite. The brief flash of insight I had the one time I met him was filled with violent colors and shapes. He is a painter whose works are in museums all over the world under many different names.”
Prophecy of the Undead Page 6