The Vampire's Heir

by Ellery St. James

  Something about that smile reminded me of something. It stuck in the back of my mind like a splinter and made me nervous.

  A cold knot formed in my stomach. I checked the phone surreptitiously.

  The screen wouldn’t turn on. It stayed flat black.

  The battery was dead.

  And I didn’t have a cell phone, because we definitely couldn’t afford that.

  Shit was an understatement.

  I raised my eyes to his and saw he was watching. I realized he didn’t look high. He was far too alert, too calm, too… what was that word he’d just used to describe me? Poised. Yeah, this guy was poised. Was he some kind of dealer? A pimp? An undercover cop?

  “Don’t be alarmed,” Victor said. “I can see that you are. I mean you no harm.”

  “You can understand why I don’t feel safe, right?” I said, reaching past the phone for a pair of scissors stuck in an empty mug beside the stove.

  “I do,” he said. “This would be an unexpected meeting for anyone, and your mother doesn’t always keep the nicest company, does she?”

  I didn’t answer. It wasn’t really a question.

  “Let me explain,” Victor said. “I am here to make you an offer.”

  “I don’t sell drugs, I won’t be a mule, and I won’t sleep with you,” I said quickly.

  Victor grimaced at my last bit. “No, no, no. My dear, nothing like that. Nothing at all like that. You see, we are related.”

  I paused, caught by surprise. “What did you say?”

  I’d heard him. I just hadn’t been expecting for him to say that. I needed him to repeat it.

  “I am your, ah, your second cousin, once removed.”

  This was definitely not what I’d been expected. I was momentarily disoriented, my plans in disarray. He was still creepy, and I was still wary, but this was a completely different direction than I thought we were heading in. I felt like I’d taken a drink of what I’d expected to be cough syrup and found it was an energy drink.

  “Are you on my dad’s side of the family?” I asked. I didn’t know anything about my dad’s family, really. I’d only met my paternal grandparents twice, both times when I was barely more than a baby.

  “Your mother,” he said with a smooth shake of his head.

  I tried to do that conversion in my head. Second cousins once removed—I could never remember what that meant. My grandmother had two sisters, but I didn’t know anything about them. My mother wasn’t in contact with anyone anymore. We lived across the country from them anyway.

  “What kind of offer?” I said. “Have you come to offer me a lost inheritance?” I laughed nervously at my joke, but Victor looked thoughtful.

  “In a way, yes,” he said.

  My heart skipped an actual beat. I felt light-headed.

  “How much?”

  “Now, it isn’t that simple,” he said, holding up a hand. “You see, I don’t have any children. And, well, I want an heir—”

  I was only half listening now. My skin was prickling, my mind reeling, my stomach somersaulting. If there was money, we might actually be able to afford some of the therapies that Lucy so desperately needed.

  “Which is why I want to adopt you,” he finished.

  I inhaled saliva and coughed so hard tears sprang into my eyes. “What? Adopt me?”

  “I want to make you the heir to my fortune,” he said.

  His fortune.

  For a minute, I only heard the sound of air molecules crashing into each other inside my ears. I felt unsteady, and my thoughts spiraled in confused circles of hope and denial.

  Denial won.

  I felt cold again. If this stranger who claimed to be related wasn’t here to deliver a sum that was owed us by some distant deceased kin, I was suspicious again. It all seemed too convenient.

  “And how much money is that?” I asked.

  He arched a brow that was so perfectly groomed it must have been waxed. “A great deal of money, my dear. Let’s leave it at that.” He paused. “This must be quite overwhelming for you, I know, like something out of a fairy tale.”

  “Or like something out of an email from a Nigerian prince,” I muttered.

  Victor continued as if he hadn’t heard me. “So, I want to give you time to think about it, and to show you what you could have. I am attending a party tonight with some friends, and I thought maybe you could come with me. See what kind of life I lead. Get a sense of who I am.”

  “Victor,” I said, “You can see how I wouldn’t feel safe doing that, can’t you? You could be a rapist. You could be a kidnapper looking to get girls to sell overseas or something. I mean, if we’re talking about adoption, shouldn’t you be doing this through a lawyer? Shouldn’t my mom be here?”

  His expression was curiously earnest. Almost childlike in the midst of his smooth assurance. “There will be legal procedures later if you decide you want to accept my offer. But if it’s evidence of our relation that you need, I have genealogies I can show you. I can prove our bloodline.” He paused. “And in regard to your mother… We both know she isn’t in any mind to make decisions. It would only upset her.”

  That was true.

  “Even if we are related,” I argued, “you’re a complete stranger. I can’t just leave with you. Besides, I have to work today.”

  “What inducement can I make to sway you?” he said, and he reached into his coat pocket.

  I tensed.

  When he withdrew his hand, he was holding a stack of twenty-dollar bills. “Five thousand dollars?”

  My stomach did a flip.

  Victor studied my face. “I’ll give it to you now, and you can deposit it in a bank if you’d like, or spend it on whatever it is you might want, or give it to your mother. I don’t care what you do with it.”

  I felt funny, as if I were floating. A desperate, queasy kind of hope clawed at my throat, and part of me itched to close my eyes, say yes to whatever ridiculous thing he wanted, and take the money. Consequences be damned.

  “I have to go to work,” I said again, more faintly.

  “Think it over. Call me.”

  “I don’t have a cell phone.” I was still looking at that stack of bills. Thinking what I could do for Lucy if I had that money. If it was real.

  Victor reached into his pocket again and produced a cell phone, slim and white, as thin as two credit cards pressed together. “Take this,” he said. “Text when you change your mind, and I’ll send my driver to pick you up.”

  His driver.

  He had a driver.

  I looked at the money again. I tried one last protest. “That could be fake. You could be a counterfeiter.”

  “Here,” he said. “Take some of it. See for yourself.” He peeled off a few of the bills and pressed them into my hand along with the phone.

  “Until then, my dear,” he said.

  I looked down at the money and the phone in my hand, and when I looked up again, he was gone.

  CHAPTER THREE

  THE PHONE WAS heavy in my pocket as I rode the bus to work, but the bills—tucked safely in the bottom of my shoe—felt even heavier.

  As soon as I reached Yellow Brick Road, I clocked in, threw on my nametag, and immediately went to the register, where we kept a pen that revealed counterfeit money. I tried it on each of the bills, my heart hammering and my hands shaky.

  They were all real.

  Somehow, that felt worse than if they’d have been fake. If the money was fake, I had my answer—the guy was an untrustworthy crook or a crazy person. But now, I was left with a deal from the devil in my lap. Not that I was actually considering it. Of course I wasn’t actually considering it! Some stranger shows up and says he wants to adopt me? And gives me a bunch of money? It was one of the sketchiest things I could have imagined.

  I was still staring at the money when Brandy, the daughter of the store’s owner and a general co-conspirator in bemoaning the tedium of working, arrived. She was a few years older than me, a college stude
nt double majoring in business and art history, with a septum piercing and a tattoo of a star on her left shoulder. Today, she’d transformed her usual fro into a pair of puffy buns that made her look like a brown-skinned Princess Leia.

  “You okay?” she asked, flicking a glance at me as she went to unlock the front door and switch the neon OPEN sign on. “You look freaked. Is your sister all right? She didn’t have to go to the hospital again or anything?”

  “Lucy’s okay,” I said. “I’m fine.”

  I said it like I could make it true just by speaking the words.

  Brandy was sweet, and we were friendly, if not exactly friends, but she wasn’t the type to press anybody to talk if they didn’t want to. She shrugged and went to help a customer who’d just stepped inside, leaving me alone with my thoughts while I sorted books in the back and scanned inventory. I kept imagining what I could do with five thousand dollars to help Lucy. It was a sick and twisted fantasy to indulge in since it wasn’t going to come true, but I couldn’t seem to stop myself. For starters, I could pay for a couple months of the therapy she needed. I could probably even afford some massages for her ever-tightening muscles, maybe even get one of those IV therapy infusions that I’d read online could help her, the ones that cost two hundred dollars a pop and weren’t covered by insurance. If there was anything left over, maybe she and I could go on a shopping spree. It had been months since we’d done anything fun and carefree like that.

  As much as I wanted to crumple up the daydream and throw it away, I couldn’t. I was enjoying fantasizing about everything too much to bring myself to stop.

  It was almost lunchtime when my pocket buzzed, startling me.

  The phone.

  I’d forgotten about it.

  I pulled it from my jacket pocket. The screen was glowing, lit by a text. It simply read:

  Your driver is outside.

  I put the phone back in my pocket.

  Five thousand dollars.

  I could at least tell the driver I wasn’t going to come. Right?

  “Hey Brandy,” I said, stopping by the register. The store was in a lull; we had the place to ourselves. There was time to chat. “What would you do for five thousand bucks?”

  She raised her eyebrows at me. “I’d eat ten spiders. I’d pull off one fingernail. I’d shave my head.”

  “Would you get in a car with a stranger?”

  “Depends on the stranger,” she said. Her gaze narrowed. “Why? What’s going on? You’ve been acting weird all morning.”

  If I told Brandy what was happening, that was a witness. Someone to alert the police to where I’d gone if I didn’t come back.

  So, I gave her a quick version of the situation.

  Brandy was the kind of person who absorbed new information quickly, without a lot of disbelief. She looked toward the door a few times while I was talking, making noncommittal noises to show she was listening.

  “So, are you going to go?” she asked when I’d finished.

  “I’m not sure yet. I’m just going to talk to the driver. But if something happens, like if he tries to kidnap me or something, call the police.”

  She nodded, and I went to the door. I could feel her watching me as I pulled it open and went out into the sunlight of the parking lot.

  A long, black SUV with tinted windows lurked a few spaces away, ominous and impressive. I didn’t know anything about cars, but even I could tell that it was expensive. It was the kind of vehicle that oozed a sense of luxury.

  As I approached, the driver’s side door opened, and a man stepped out. He was short, compact, with brown skin and straight, gleaming back hair. His eyelashes were so thick that it looked like he was wearing eyeliner. He was handsome, and he had a calm assuredness that sent an instant sense of trust through me like a wave. My gut told me this man was safe.

  “Good morning, Miss Alexandria,” he said as he bowed. “My name is Khalil, and I work for Mr. Branaugh. I’m going to be your driver for the day.”

  “I haven’t decided if I’m going to go with you yet,” I said.

  “Ah,” he replied, looking unbothered by this.

  I bit my lip and surveyed the car. “Where exactly would you be taking me, anyway?”

  “If you have not yet had lunch, then we could get something to eat, and after that, Mr. Branaugh wants you to select a dress for this evening.” Khalil’s tone was politely apologetic. “He assumes you do not already possess something to wear.”

  “He assumes correctly,” I said. Lunch sounded good, and I was mildly intrigued by the dress situation. I looked Khalil in the eye. “This is a weird situation, you know?”

  “It is most eccentric, like everything Mr. Branaugh does,” he agreed.

  “I’ll be right back,” I told him, and then I turned around and went back inside the Yellow Brick Road.

  Brandy was standing by the register in a way that made me think she’d just rushed there from the door. She’d been watching us, no doubt.

  That made me feel a little safer.

  I pulled out the phone again. “Give me your number.”

  “So, you’re going?”

  “I’m going,” I said.

  Five thousand dollars, I thought. And lunch. And maybe some fancy dress I can sell on eBay.

  Brandy typed her number into the phone’s contacts “Text me,” she said. “Let me know you’re okay. I’m serious. If I don’t hear from you every two hours, I’m calling the police.” She paused. “Even better—there’s that app that lets you see where people are? I’m adding you.”

  “Okay,” I said, relieved she wasn’t dismissing my concerns. I wasn’t going to argue against precautions.

  “Okay,” Brandy said, looking at the screen of her phone. “I’m going to be keeping an eye on you, girl. All day. Text me.”

  I nodded. “I will.”

  I put the phone back in my pocket and gathered up the backpack I used as a purse. I glanced at the door and then back at Brandy, who gave me a thumbs-up.

  Khalil was still waiting outside the car, standing with his hands clasped behind his back and his legs in a stance that made me think military. When I exited the store, he smiled at me. It was a nice smile, and it made me feel safe.

  Being around my mom’s shady friends for most of my life had given me a good gut. I had instincts about people. My instinct about Khalil was that he was trustworthy. I returned his smile tentatively, and his widened.

  “Where would you like to eat, Miss Alexandria?” he asked.

  I realized I probably ought to put something in my stomach. In the aftermath of Victor’s appearance, I’d forgotten to eat the cereal I’d made for myself. It was still sitting somewhere in the house, probably a bowl of mush at this point. I felt a little light-headed, although I was too keyed-up to be hungry. Whatever lay before me today, I should stay nourished.

  I couldn’t think of a single place to eat. My mind was blank.

  “What do you suggest?” I asked.

  “There is a fine restaurant near the dress store,” Khalil said as he opened my door. “Italian food. Very good, I’ve heard, although I have not tried it myself. Do you like Italian food?”

  “Yes,” I said as I scooted onto the cool leather seats. They were soft as butter. The interior of the car smelled fresh and faintly of something spicy, like the freshly-cleaned apartment of a wealthy bachelor, or a leather goods store that charged exorbitant prices.

  Khalil climbed into the driver’s seat and glanced at me in the rear-view mirror. “All right, then. I’ll take you there. It will be about twenty minutes. Do you want something to drink while we drive?” He pushed a button on the dash, and a compartment near my knees slid open to reveal an array of drink choices.

  I selected a glass bottle of something sparkling and foreign-looking with a picture of a lemon on it. The glass was ice cold against my fingers. “Thanks.”

  “Music?”

  “Uh, sure.”

  Instantly, a soft electronic beat filled th
e car.

  “Good?” Khalil asked, still studying me in the rear-view mirror.

  “That’s fine,” I said, feeling a little like a princess.

  And then we began to drive.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  I SIPPED ON my fancy sparkling lemon-drink and stared out the windows as we drove. I wondered if the money Victor had given me was supposed to pay for my lunch. Hopefully, this place wasn’t too expensive, because I wanted to save some to put toward a treatment for Lucy. I could at least pay for one therapeutic massage, maybe.

  The restaurant was called L’atmosfera. The building was sleek and black, with curtains of water falling from columns of stone on either side of the door. A valet took the car, and I walked inside with Khalil beside me, feeling suddenly shabby in my clothes. The hostess glanced us over, but her expression changed when Khalil said something to her in a low voice.

  “This way,” she said, and she led us to a table in the back of the restaurant. Everything was dark and soft. The room was lit with modern chandeliers shaped like explosions of debris. A woman at a piano played live jazz from one end of the room. A bar light by blue light glowed at another.

  The whole thing seemed exceptionally fancy. And expensive.

  We were seated, and about ten seconds after my butt hit the chair, a server appeared with glasses of water, a basket of coarse, grainy bread, and an offer of wine.

  “I’m underage,” I said, and Khalil waved him away after ordering something I didn’t catch. The server returned in under a minute with a bottle of the stuff I’d been drinking in the car. He poured some in a glass and then put a napkin in my lap. Another server appeared with a second basket of bread that looked different than the first.

  I picked up the menu. Everything was in Italian. No pictures. And I didn’t see any mentions of spaghetti.

  Khalil watched me studying the pages. He smiled gently at my confusion. “Do you want any assistance?” he asked quietly.

  “I’m going to be honest with you,” I said. “I’ve never even driven past a restaurant this nice, let alone eaten in one. I don’t know what to order. And the servers are freaking me out. They’re like jack-in-the-boxes.”