“My kind?”
“Don’t you know what you are?” the baron asked.
“All I know is I was bitten. Some guy who called himself Niccolo.”
“Niccolo the Damned,” the baron said. “At least, that’s what others have called him. Funny, it’s been some time since he sired. I suppose at his age the taste for blood is… intermittent.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Baron Whoever-You-Are.”
“It’s Baron Samedi, dear. It is my aspect that is passed from one vampire to the next. It is I who give you immortality.”
“Did you just say vampire?”
“But of course, darling. What did you expect?”
“I don’t know…”
“And there’s something else about you, too. A power…”
“I’m a witch.”
“Ah, yes you are. How… intriguing.”
“Why am I here? Why are you telling me these things?”
“This is just temporary, dearest child. While your body undergoes a—how should I put this?—a metamorphosis of sorts.”
“To become… a vampire?”
“Of course, Mercy. It is a marvelous gift!”
“I just didn’t want to die.”
“And die you shall not, dear. But I must tell you, do not delay feeding. You must feed to complete the transformation.”
“You mean… drink blood?”
The baron nodded. “Do not fear it. You will develop a taste for it once the change is complete.”
“And Nico, the guy who bit me?”
“He’ll be along shortly,” the baron said as he uncorked a flask and took a swig.
“What is that?” I asked.
“Rum, of course. Care for a try?”
“No, thank you.”
“Are you sure? It might help with the pain.”
“What pain?”
“Oh, you don’t feel it yet. But you will… until you feed, of course.”
“And what happens to my soul? I saw it leave me…”
The baron pulled a small box from his pocket and retrieved a cigarette. “This here contains your soul. Never worry, dear. I’ll keep it safe. Not that you have much use for it anymore.”
I winced. “That pain you spoke of—I think I feel it.”
The baron clapped his hands. “Bravo, that means your transformation is almost complete! Congratulations, and welcome to my… unholy family.”
The pain grew worse, and I screamed in pain.
“Yes, very good! Very good. Remember, Mercy—how funny that’s your name. Everyone appreciates a bit of irony, don’t you think? Anyway, remember: you must feed. And before sunrise. You mustn’t be out in the sun.”
“What happens if I go out in the sun?”
“It won’t kill you. You’re already dead. Well, undead, anyway. But it will leave some nasty scars. Might take a century or more to heal. And we’d all hate to see such a pretty face go to waste.”
“It really hurts!” I yelled.
“Good, yes. Just a few more moments and you’ll be on your way…”
I screamed again.
“Farewell, young vampire! And remember, be sure to feed straightaway.”
The baron disappeared, and all that had been black changed to red… and then black again. But now I could feel my body. I could move. I was lying down…
I tried to sit up. I only moved maybe two inches before I struck something with my forehead. “Fuck!”
I reached all around, feeling the texture of the pine. For me, it seemed like only a few moments had passed. Like I was bitten, had a brief conversation with Baron Whatever-His-Name-Was… was it Baron Salami? I think so… and now I was here. More time must’ve passed than I realized.
I was buried. In a box.
I pushed my hands against the lid, but it wouldn’t budge. The weight of the earth was pressing against it.
Nico… he said I’d be stronger. He said the grave couldn’t hold me.
Maybe I just had to believe I could do it. I pushed again—still nothing.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!”
The rage was boiling up inside me. My stomach was churning in pain. I had to get out of here. I had to eat. Blood. Yes, I needed blood.
I screamed and pushed with all my might. The lid of my coffin exploded in front of me, a shower of dirt blasting through the air. I leapt to my feet and jumped—yes, jumped in a single bound—out of my grave.
I looked at my grave—they hadn’t even given me a stone yet. But I recognized the one beside me. “They buried me next to Mom. How thoughtful of them.”
My stomach growled. I didn’t know where to go. Back to the sanatorium? Hell no. So I went home. At the very least, I had to get out of the awful floral dress they’d buried me in. It was something I would have liked to wear before, when I was still human… but now it just seemed gaudy. I tossed off the high-heeled shoes they’d buried me in. Not that I don’t like heels, but I wanted to run. I had to run. So I did.
“Holy shit,” I said, finding myself a hundred yards away from the graveyard in only a second. I smirked; I could get used to this.
So I ran home. I ran to my old bedroom window and pried it open. I just needed to grab a change of clothes. A few items…
But my brother was in my bed. My bed. I hadn’t even been dead that long. It couldn’t have been more than a day or two. And Edwin had already taken over my room?
I felt the rage boil up inside me. And then something about my sleeping brother enthralled me. I tilted my head to the side as I stared at his neck… I could hear his heart beating. A slow tha-thump, tha-thump, tha-thump…
The next thing I knew, I’d sunk my teeth into his neck. Ah yes… the blood on my tongue… soothing my stomach. It wasn’t the taste I craved, but something in the blood… it was like life itself. I sucked and sucked, and he never even awoke.
Then something grabbed me and tossed me aside like a rag doll.
I looked up, and he stared at me—Nico, the vampire who bitten me before.
“What the hell are you doing?” Nico asked. “Your own brother?”
“I just came for a few things. I couldn’t help myself… When I saw him there, it’s like I had this urge.”
“The craving,” Nico said. “You could have killed him. You have to learn to control it. But there’ll be time enough to worry about that later. Come quick, we don’t have long before sunrise.”
I followed Nico out my former bedroom window, my brother’s blood still dripping down my chin. “We have to get you back to your grave,” Nico said.
“Why the fuck would I want to go back there?”
“The grave is consecrated to hold your body. Until your craving is under control, it will hold you during the day. If you don’t go back to your grave and a craving comes out of you, you’ll end up running out into the sun…”
“And that’ll leave nasty scarring…”
Nico looked at me and narrowed his eyes. “How did you know?”
“That Baron Salami guy told me…”
Again, Nico looked confused. “First of all, it’s Samedi. Not Salami.”
“Samedi. Salami. What’s the difference?”
“It is a rare thing for him to appear to a vampire during the metamorphosis,” Nico said. “There must be something… special about you.”
“Well, I’m a witch, you know.”
“Yes, but you’re hardly the first witch to be turned,” Nico said. “Your power… whatever it is, it must intrigue him.”
“Lucky me.”
“I’m not sure if luck is the word I’d use,” Nico said. “If the baron has appeared to you, it must mean he has a plan for you.”
I shrugged. “Well, at least someone does. I mean, I’m immortal now, right? I need something to do with all my time.”
“For now, you don’t have much time. You simply must return to your grave. I’ll be back to find you tomorrow night. Please, don’t leave your grave until I arrive. And no ma
tter what you do, don’t go back home. You can never go back home.”
I flashed a pouty face. “But little Edwin… he was so yummy!”
Nico raised his finger as if he was about to chastise me. I flashed him a smile. “You’re lucky I owed Moll a favor,” Nico said. “There’s a reason I don’t sire younglings.”
I shrugged. “Again, lucky me.”
“Just get back in your grave. I’ll cover you up again.”
“Won’t people notice that my grave was disturbed?” I asked.
“Thankfully, this time of year, without grass or weeds all we need to do is pack the dirt a little. Trust me, Mercy. I’ve done this more than once. No one will suspect a thing. And remember, wait for me before you rise tomorrow.”
“You’ve got it,” I said as I climbed back into my pine box. Don’t get me wrong, I loved this new… feeling I had. But this box made for a horrid bed. And all I could think of was my brother… his blood.
I had to have another taste.
5
AS SHITTY AS the pine box was, I slept a hell of a lot better than I had in the sanatorium. I don’t know how I was supposed to know when night had fallen, but a vigor came over my body. I sprang awake and, once again, exploded out of my grave.
Wait for Nico… Wait for Nico…
Fuck that. I wanted blood. I needed blood.
The next thing I knew, my fangs were sunk into my brother’s neck. Yes… more…
Again, I felt my body get tossed away. Nico looked at me, his eyes wide and pointed to the window.
I huffed, but I didn’t argue. I had satisfied my craving… for now.
“What the fuck, Mercy?” Nico said. “I told you to wait.”
“I couldn’t help myself.”
Nico shook his head. “I went to your grave. First, you can’t leave the dirt all tilled up like that when you rise. And you need to make sure someone is there—namely, me—to help pack the dirt again when you go down before sunrise.”
“Sorry,” I said. “I just had a hunger… it was practically a compulsion.”
“Understandable. But you have to be smart. If you keep this up, they’re going to get wise to it,” Nico said. “If you want to survive long as a vampire, discretion is key.”
“Survive? I’m immortal.”
“Unless they stake your heart. Or worse.”
“Worse?”
“If you get staked, you can come back again if someone removes the stake. But if they eviscerate your heart… that’s pretty much it. You’ll be stuck in a special place in hell reserved for vampires, and it’s not exactly the sort of place you want to spend eternity.”
“I get it,” I said. “It’s just the craving.”
“We all have to get through this,” Nico said. “Most vampires don’t make it past their first year. That’s when the cravings are the worst. But if you can gain just a little control, I promise, after the first year it will be much easier.”
“I have to deal with these cravings for a whole year?”
“Like I said, Mercy: there are ways to control it. That’s what we’re going to practice tonight.”
“Practice? How?”
Nico smiled. “We’re going to diversify your palate. It should help take away your singular craving for your own brother’s blood.”
“So we’re hunting men?”
“Or women, if you prefer,” Nico said.
I smirked. “I can go both ways.”
“You are a bad girl, aren’t you?”
“You have no idea…”
“Remember, try to act human.”
“Act human? How else could I act?”
Nico took me into town. Exeter. A small town in the smallest of states—Rhode Island. In small towns there are a lot of shadows but only a few dark alleys. Nico too me into one of them. He knocked on a door three times.
“What is this place?” I asked.
Nico winked at me. “You’ll see.”
A large man in a tightly fit button-down shirt opened the door. He stepped aside, and we walked in. I was shocked by what I saw: girls not much older than me wearing hardly anything at all. The sound of chatter, drunken men spouting on about God knew what, filled the air. It smelled of beer and burning tobacco.
“What is this place?”
“A gentleman’s club,” Nico said.
“These men hardly strike me as gentlemen.”
Nico smiled. “Most of them aren’t.”
One of the girls caught my eye—the way she moved her hips was almost hypnotizing. But it was more than that… As I focused on her, I could hear her heart beating in her chest. I wanted her. I wanted to taste her…
“See something you like?” Nico asked.
“She looks… delicious,” I said.
“Indeed, she does,” Nico said through a smirk. “One thing you’ll find is that men and women alike will find you irresistible. We are predators. And our natural allure is how we draw in our prey.”
“Can I have her?”
“Not here. Not now. You have to get her alone. Seduce her with your charm. We must never feed in public. There are those who hunt our kind, so we must always be discreet about the hunt.”
“But that urge… that craving…”
“That’s why I brought you here. So you can practice restraint.”
I bit my lip. “This is torture. I just want to grab her… take her. I want her blood.”
“Of course you do,” Nico said. “Do you think I don’t feel any desire?”
“You aren’t showing it.”
“Exactly,” Nico said. “Not to mention, after a few decades you won’t need to feed more than every few months. Give it a century or more and you can go a year. But now, daily feeds are an inevitability. The trick to surviving is to master restraint, to learn the art of the hunt.”
“So what do I do now?”
“Buy her a drink,” Nico said.
“With what money?”
Nico handed me a twenty-dollar bill.
“Twenty dollars?” I stared at the bill, then at him. “How much do you expect us to drink?”
“The alcohol won’t affect you. But it will her… not that you need it to seduce her. But if she’s had a few drinks, others are less likely to suspect anything is awry if she leaves with you at the end of the night.”
“So it’s all about the show?”
“Indeed it is,” Nico said. “We are not just bloodthirsty killers. We are performers. We have to be.”
“So, what role are you playing tonight?” I asked. “And who’s the lucky lady?”
Nico smirked. “I have my eye on something. I’ll keep an eye on you from a distance. Just do your thing.”
I didn’t think I really had a thing. Not that I hadn’t flirted before. But something about this new nature gave me a boldness I’d never known in the past.. It was like any semblance of a conscience and veneer of refined civilization departed with my soul.
I approached the young girl—probably about my age, maybe a year or two older. Long blond hair flowed down her back. Her dress was black and short, falling barely below the thighs. The top was held up by threads, falling more than low enough to reveal what I desired the most—the artery in the side of her neck. I tapped her on the shoulder.
The girl quickly twirled, eyes widening when she saw me. Then they narrowed again, as if she was trying to figure what it was about me that drew her in. It was the sort of look someone would give if they stumbled across someone they knew but just couldn’t place who they were or where they’d met.
“Name’s Mercy. Can I buy you a drink?” I asked.
“Of course,” the girl said, a devious smirk spreading across her face. “The name’s Rose.” It wasn’t acceptable in those days to openly flirt with members of the same sex. I felt no trepidation, being a vampire. But I could see the thrill of the taboo in her expression.
“Nice to meet you, Rose. If you’d like a fuck to go along with the drink, I’m willing,” I said—the
n pressed my fingers to my lips. Had I actually said that? That wasn’t me… I’d always been a shy girl. And while I found boys and girls alike alluring, there wasn’t a soul on Earth who know about my predilections for other females. I had always felt ashamed of it, like something was wrong with me… But now, I feared nothing. Least of all the opinions of humans. Does a rancher care what his livestock thinks of his personal exploits? Still, I half expected Rose to get up and storm off.
Instead, she smiled wide. “I’ll consider that,” she said. “If you buy me enough drinks.”
“Sounds like a plan,” I said as we approached the bar. “What will you have?”
Truth be told, I didn’t know shit about ordering drinks. I knew there was beer and pretty bottles. I was reasonably sure, though, that ordering something from the pretty bottle would earn me more than a little mockery. It wasn’t that I was afraid of getting caught drinking—we didn’t have minimum drinking ages in those days, not in Rhode Island. Those came after the repeal of prohibition. Still, while I was bold, if there was one thing I loathed about myself in the moment it was my naivety, my youthful lack of knowledge of a social life due largely to my overly strict Puritan upbringing.
“I’ll take a martini on the rocks,” Rose said.
I waved down the bartender, who dropped another patron’s drink to take our order. It was the allure. I could get used to this sort of priority service.
“What will you two pretty ladies have this evening?”
“Two martinis on the rocks.”
“Coming right up,” the bartender said.
I watched him carefully, even as I exchanged flirtatious eyes with Rose.
Some gin. A splash of vermouth. Orange bitters. I’d never tried any of those things before.
“Thanks for the drink,” Rose said. “Your first time?”
I squinted. “Yeah, I haven’t drunk much before. Is it that obvious?”
“I wasn’t talking about that, dear. I was talking about… with another girl.”
I cocked my head. As forward as I’d been, I figured she’d take me for a regular floozy. “What makes you say that?”
“By the way you’re dressed, I’d think you’d never been to anything more social than Sunday school before tonight.”
If I wasn’t bereft of all color in my new condition, I might have blushed out of embarrassment. “I’m not the good girl I appear to be.”
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