“You would have been perfect,” I said. I ran my thumb over and across the blood. It was still sticky. “I would have stalked you, watched you breathe with such specificity I could have timed the seconds between each inhalation. Even now, I do these things.”
I looked up into Justin’s eyes. His gaze was fixed, his body unmoving. His large hands lay still in my grasp.
“Even now, I know you cross your ankles one over the other when you’re relaxed. That it gives you a feeling of power. That the vein on the right side of your wrist on your right hand snakes out and then runs deep down your arm. It takes you two and a half seconds between each breath. Precisely. I know all of these things and thousands more. I would have killed you with pleasure. I would have killed you and then taken you with me.”
I looked to the floor, but I knew that Justin had stood up. He said things like, “Got to go, talk later,” and other assorted, useless comments. All I knew for sure was that the door slammed behind him.
Justin left sometime in the early afternoon but it was four thirty when I finally looked up from the floor. I rubbed at my lower back muscles, craned my neck, and stretched my arms out. I pushed the curtain aside and walked out onto the porch. The sky was starting to head toward sunset, and I again thought of Suleen’s warning.
The hunt for you has begun….
So I would face the coven and die alone. I was prepared for that. It was just a matter of when. I leaned against the ledge and watched so many of Wickham’s students enjoying the afternoon. I hoped I would see Tony walk by and that I could call out to him, but I knew that he would be avoiding my porch. In fact, I only saw him in anatomy class. And then, he only talked about the in-class experiments. Whenever I attempted to say anything different, he would get up and go to the bathroom or make some snide comment about me being a lemming and the ringleader of the Three-Piece. I shook my head and refocused on the trees. Either way, I missed him.
“You’re leaving?” I said…only these words were a memory resurfacing in my mind. I wasn’t actually speaking them out loud.
HATHERSAGE, ENGLAND—THE DAYS OF KING GEORGE II
1740
“You are reckless,” Rhode hissed. He was walking away from the house and toward the endless sweeping hills. It was when I lost interest in anything but the “perfect” existence that I started to lose control of my mind. I became obsessed, a one-track mind. I concentrated on the perfection when the pain became too much. It was the only way I could distract myself. What did perfect mean? Blood only of humans, no animals. Only strength.
“I know what I am doing,” I said, bringing my feet together and raising my chin up.
“Do you? Last night”—Rhode moved closer toward me so he was an inch away from my face. He whispered so his fangs bared at me—“you murdered a child. A child, Lenah.”
“You always said that infant blood was the sweetest. Most pure.”
Rhode was horror stricken. His jaw actually dropped. He backed away from me, “I said it as fact, not as an invitation. You are not the same girl. You are not the girl on your father’s vineyard in the white nightgown.”
“I saved that child from a life of sadness. She will never have to grow old. Miss her family. Her mother.”
“Saved her? In death? You murdered her after you let her play in this house!”
Rhode took a breath, and from the way his eyes had a misty look, I could tell he was formulating his thoughts. “I told you to concentrate on me. That if you focus on the love you feel for me, you can break free. But you can’t do that. I see that now,” Rhode said. I tried to speak, but he continued before I could speak up. “They say vampires after three hundred years or so begin to lose their minds. That most choose sunlight to bring them to their deaths over a slow insanity. The prospect of forever is too much. And for you—the life you lost has made you insane. Living on this earth for all of eternity has brought your mind to a place where I can no longer reach you.”
“I’m not insane, Rhode. I’m a vampire. You might try to act like it.”
“You make me regret what I did on that vineyard,” Rhode said, and turned from me, starting his long descent into the countryside.
“You regret me?” I called after him, looking at his backside.
“Find yourself, Lenah. When you do, I will return.”
If I could have cried, I would have. In that instant my tear ducts filled with a scorching pain, like acid rising and collecting in the eyes. I actually bent over from the shock of the pain in my eyes when Rhode disappeared into the fields. I could have watched him leave. I could have followed his frame until he was out of my vampire sight, but the pain was too much. Instead, I turned back to the house and walked into the darkened foyer. In the middle of the shadow on the tapestries and silver goblets, I decided I would never be left alone again. That’s when I decided to make the coven. So I went to London and found Gavin.
Chapter Twenty
Tap tap—tap. Three single taps on the door. I looked up from the ground. I had just finished sweeping up Rhode’s ashes back into the urn. How odd it was that all his wonderful life could be swept up in a matter of a few brushstrokes. I walked to the bureau and set the photos so they stood upright.
Then whoever it was knocked again.
I wouldn’t allow myself to think it was Justin. It wouldn’t be. It would be someone looking for me, for homework, or language tutoring. For one horrendous moment I thought it would be Vicken or another member of the coven, despite the dwindling daylight. I had no idea how strong any of them were anymore. Perhaps all of them could be in the sun.
I placed the urn back on the bureau and opened the door. Justin stood in the doorway with one hand in his pocket and the other on the door frame. “How do I know you’re not crazy?”
“You don’t.”
Justin walked into the apartment directly over to the photos on the bureau. “Explain to me why I’ve been walking around campus for the last three hours trying to talk myself out of believing you. Explain this to me. Why do I believe you?”
“I can’t.”
“And those men are vampires, too?” He pointed at the coven.
I nodded.
“You’re not a vampire now?” He crossed his arms and leaned back on the bureau. His eyes were more relaxed. There was no furrowed brow or tense lips. Instead, his eyes looked into mine for answers.
“Definitely not,” I said as resolutely as possible.
“Let’s say that I dare to believe you. That in some whacked-out universe this is true.” Justin took a breath. “How did this happen to you? Don’t, um, vampires live…forever?” His words were clumsy. I could tell he was afraid of getting the information wrong.
“Generally,” I said with a hint of laughter. I felt the tension between us break apart, and the air seemed to open up. A short wave of relief washed over my body, and my shoulders relaxed. “A very ancient ritual,” I said with a sigh.
“Ritual?”
“A sacrifice. A ritual older than Rhode and me combined,” I said, and sat down on the couch. I kept my hands near my knees, but after a moment, Justin was sitting down next to me.
“Rhode, the guy in that picture?” He nodded toward the bureau.
“He was my best friend,” I said, though my voice cracked. I cleared my throat. “He died so I could be human again.”
“I don’t understand,” Justin said.
We looked at each other a moment, the sheer uncertainty of what lay ahead of us resting in the air. “Let’s just take this one thing at a time.”
Justin nodded, and he slipped his hand into mine. “This is crazy,” he whispered. Justin ran his fingertips down my skin so goose bumps erupted on my arms.
“I know,” I replied, while relishing the glory of actually being able to feel my body. Was this joy or comfort, maybe both? I smiled at our interlocking fingers. I didn’t even ask if he was mad or wanted any more explanation from me. I was just glad he was there, and not leaving me alone to rationalize th
e shame and confusion of my former life.
“We could go out tonight,” Justin offered. “Get our mind off this.”
“Yeah,” I said, perking up immediately. I sat up straight and smiled brightly.
“Come on, then. Let’s go.”
“Where are we going?” I asked, standing up.
“My brothers are going to dinner. Then they’re going out. I think we need to go out.”
I walked into my bedroom and strategically did not shut the door. I didn’t get naked outright, but I peeked out with just a bra and underwear on. “Where do you usually go?” I asked.
“You’ll see,” Justin said. His mouth dropped a bit at the sight of me, and I tucked back behind the safety of the bedroom wall. “Just make sure that if you decide to wear what you’re wearing now, which I totally support, by the way, that you wear comfortable shoes.”
To my surprise and delight we ended up in Boston. Once we got out of Justin’s car, we walked as a large group up a long street flanked with gray stone buildings. Claudia and Kate walked on either side of me. It was so odd how they had started to dress just like me. And it would be a lie if I said I wasn’t somewhat flattered. That night I was wearing a short black dress with black heels. The girls, once they saw what I was wearing, ran back to their dorms to put on dresses.
Claudia linked her arm through mine. “I hope the club’s crowded tonight,” she said as we walked up the street. We approached a long line of people and stopped at the very end.
“What club?” I stepped away from the girls and asked Justin.
“We come here almost every Friday. We haven’t lately, but mainly we go to get out of Lovers Bay.” Justin motioned to a building next to us.
“What kind of members do they have?”
Justin laughed and kissed my forehead. “Not that kind of club,” he said. He linked his arm over my shoulder. “A dance club. I guess from your time, it would have been called a ball?”
“Oh,” I said, and it suddenly made sense. Justin linked his arm around my waist and I cozied into his embrace. We were a unit, inseparable again, and he knew the truth. I was overjoyed. Happy beyond measure, and I loved to dance, even back in the fifteenth century, when I was human the first time.
We stood in line outside the club, called Lust, and awaited admittance. Around me women and men were dressed in tight clothes. Some of the girls had on short skirts and tank tops. It was the beginning of November, and I knew they were shivering despite the unusually warm fall.
This train of thought was going through my mind the moment I felt that tingling in the bottom of my stomach and the hush of silence. Yes, I was being watched. Considering Suleen’s warning, this was not unexpected. I leaned on Justin’s warm arm around my waist, but my eyes surveyed the street. It seemed normal. Men and women walked from club to club. A street vendor sold hot dogs and pretzels. Cabs and cars drove up and down the street, and the music from the many clubs on the street filled the air with thumps and rhythms. Everything appeared normal.
Let’s face it. Vampires, ones of Vicken’s age—two hundred or so—can see up to any horizon. I could have been leagues away from where he was standing. I turned to look down the street. Even though my vampire sight had mostly waned, I calculated that I was able to see two miles into the distance. Five or six streets away, couples walked together. It smelled like cigarettes, booze, and hot dogs. I scanned the landscape, waiting for my eyes to fall on Vicken’s, those brown eyes that mesmerized me and challenged my soul back in the 1800s. Perhaps it was Suleen keeping an eye out? That thought brought a momentary calm to my chest.
“Are you ever going to tell us what your tattoo means?” Claudia asked. I had taken off my coat and forgotten that on my left shoulder was the tattoo of my coven. “My mom won’t let me get one,” she added.
“Oh, um,” I began, but was saved from answering because we finally got to the door and Justin slipped something hard, like a credit card, into my hand.
“Just hand this over,” he whispered in my ear. “You have to be twenty-one to get in here.”
Oh…the irony.
I looked down. My photograph was on a Massachusetts license with a fake birthday so that it said I was twenty-one. “Curtis made it,” Justin added, and I handed it to a burly bouncer. The bouncer was huge, like a bodybuilder. Gavin, the last time I saw him, was bigger. I smiled in a genuine way, and the bouncer waved me into Lust.
Once we walked into the club I could feel the bass of the music underneath my ribs. It pulsated inside me. Hundreds of people—no, it must have been closer to a thousand—crowded the club. Lust had two floors. The street level was actually the second floor of the club, though it had no dance floor and instead was a wraparound balcony. Enormous paintings decorated the walls, all depicting couples in moments of passion. I gripped the bar of the second-floor railing. Justin stepped to my left.
“Your jaw’s dropped again,” Justin said, and then he looked down. His skin was highlighted green, gold, red, and black from the interchanging lights on the ceiling.
“I’ve never seen anything like this before,” I said, and then I too looked below.
The people dancing looked as though they were all making love to one another. Bodies were pressed against one another so tight, I couldn’t tell whose belonged to whom. Hands interlocked, legs intertwined, all in rhythm with the music blasting out of enormous speakers surrounding the club. People, in my time, never danced that way. Then the song changed. The rhythm was different from the one that had been playing before. The drums were so fast, I knew they had to be a product of technology. Music made by machines?
Beat. Beat. Beat. The crowd started to jump. All of the bodies on the floor jumped up and down, up and down together. Then there was a mad dash to the dance floor.
Claudia, who I didn’t realize was on my right, squealed with delight, “Oh, my Gooooodd!! I love this song!”
Immediately, she got on an escalator that was in the middle of the second-floor railing and rode it down to the bottom-level dance floor.
“Come on, Lenah!” Claudia called. She smiled at me and I felt a pull in my chest. She was so eager to share this with me, but I had no idea how to move my body as the people did on the dance floor.
Curtis, Roy, and Kate followed after Claudia. Actually a lot of the people on the second floor moved toward the escalators (there was one on either end of the balcony) and down to the dance floor.
Then Justin placed his hand into mine. “Let’s go.” I pulled away from Justin. “No way. I don’t know how to dance like that.”
“No one here does,” he said, and pulled me onto the escalator. As we rode down I tried to explain. “The last ball I went to was before music could be played on a stereo. If you wanted to hear it, you had to go to a concert. Justin!”
Before I knew it, we were in the middle of the dance floor. The rhythm of the song was fast, then slow, and then fast again. The moment we got to the dance floor it was slow again. Justin and I were surrounded by people, pressed together, everyone swaying, waiting for the moment when the song would pick up and really thud and beat everyone into a rhythm they could dance to. At that moment it was just a series of soft drumbeats.
“Just close your eyes,” he said. “The song kinda slows down during this part and then really picks up. When it does, this place is gonna go nuts.”
I wrapped my arms tightly around Justin’s back. I think I might have been bending my knees a bit, but compared to Justin I was basically standing still. He was amazing, pumping and thrusting his body to match the rhythm. The beat was rising, the pace of the drums was quickening, and the bodies on the dance floor moved in sync.
A girl next to us kept her eyes closed while she danced and raised her arms in the air. As the rhythm picked up, so did her swaying and she moved so dramatically, her hips and arms knocked me out of Justin’s grasp. So many people were coming onto the dance floor at that point and the base was pumping so hard, I was pushed away from Justin before I even
knew what was going on.
“Lenah!” he called, but I was stuck in between two couples pressed between each other. I stood on my tiptoes and I could see Curtis jumping up and down but not Justin. The music picked up, I mean so hard that it was thumping in my chest again.
I was squished in the middle of the dance floor, turning this way and that. People were dancing, but I just stood. Then I heard someone whisper my name.
“Let go…,” the voice said, though I wasn’t entirely sure they were talking to me.
Maybe it was all in my head. I don’t know. But I took a deep breath. I smelled liquor, sweet perfumes, body odor. The last time I had been in a room with people close to this number, I was setting them on a poor helpless woman. Someone to kill.
“Just let go,” the voice said again.
So I did. I was in the middle of the floor. I closed my eyes, let the rhythm of the song take me over, and when the song really picked up and the entire dance floor was going nuts, I was right there with them. My hands were raised above my head. I swayed. I jumped. I pressed my back against people I didn’t know and felt them press back on me in return. Even though the song was pumping, my movements felt slow. I rubbed shoulders with strangers, and someone even linked hands with me. The sweat dripped down my nose and back and I was lost in a sea of strangers. I didn’t even know what I looked like anymore. I didn’t even care. No bungee jump. No solitary experience. Only something like this could make me realize it.
I was Lenah Beaudonte. No longer a vampire of the worst order. No more the leader of a coven of night wanderers.
I was set free.
Chapter Twenty-One
A Chinese vase shattered against a wall in a living room cast in shadow. Vicken gathered his breath and collapsed into a lounge chair.
Infinite Days Page 19