As for me, after the shock of the moment passed, I felt a certain unease realizing the implications that love between my two friends would entail.
Phoenix had explained to me that sexual relations between humans and vampires were quite common, but love stories were another matter. Knowing what he’d told me about the virtuous François, I doubted that his sudden attraction would only be a simple affair, and the same would go for Angela. If she had turned away all her suitors so far, it wasn’t without reason. She was waiting for the right one . . .
And it seemed like the man of her dreams was a vampire, more open-minded than Phoenix, yes, but still a nest of problems, that was certain.
Love between two vampires was rare and unpopular. Now love between a human and a vampire! According to what my boss had said, it was impossible. Sexual attraction and one-night stands were common enough, but a serious relationship with real feelings . . . there was no precedent for that.
It seemed as though vampire creators only choose as their progeny selfish individuals incapable of feeling. That would explain their ridiculous vision of love. In short, we had enough problems on our hands without adding a dangerous and impossible liaison that would only attract the attention of the Greats. And I certainly didn’t want to see my friends suffer. What kind of mess had I gotten us in now?
At the movie theater, I managed to separate the two lovebirds by arranging things so Angela was seated at the end of the row. Karl, Matthew, and I formed a barricade of bodies that kept Angela from being too close to François. Matthew sat next to me, which provoked a completely inappropriate question from Karl during the previews.
“So, Matthew, you are Sam’s boyfriend? She talks a lot about you.”
Turning beet red, I sat up straight in my chair and shot daggers at his impolite curiosity. Matthew must have thought that I was talking about him in these terms; he answered with a big smile full of hope.
“I’m flattered that she spoke of me to you.”
I thought I’d better put things back in order without offending him.
“Of course I told them about you. After all, along with Angela, you’re my best friends.” I’d insisted on the word friends to make the situation clear, and seeing his face darken, I knew it had been successful. I thought I’d set things straight, but that was without taking into account Karl’s harsh verve; he was determined to take his vengeance on everyone for the insult he had suffered.
“Oh, yes, now that you mention it, she did say you were friends. It is true that before, she only ever spoke of her dear Phoenix, so that was a nice change of tune.”
There was a silence, then a resounding thud of someone who just received an elbow to the ribs (François didn’t hold back). I almost choked in horror, and the air seemed to have completely escaped from my lungs. How had he dared to speak of his friend, my boss, a vampire whose existence must absolutely remain a secret, just to annoy me? Was he just a hothead or congenital idiot? Phoenix was going to tear the skin off his back! And knowing him, that wasn’t a metaphor.
Livid, I risked a glance over at Matthew, who was frowning deeply.
“Who is this . . . Phoenix?”
“Uh . . . well, that’s a . . . um . . . ,” I stuttered pathetically. Quick, an idea! “He’s my ex” was the only thing I could think of.
Matthew couldn’t see him, but Karl was convulsing with laughter. It took an incredible effort for me to recover my composure and look Matthew straight in the eyes while offering him the lie of the century.
“Really, his name is . . . Aydan.”
Good heavens, why had I used that name? Phoenix was going to kill me when he learned that I’d given his real name in this sordid conversation. Karl and François weren’t reacting at all, since they didn’t know Phoenix’s real identity. I’d just betrayed him. Good grief. All that work to gain his confidence lost through my mistake and the incredible arrogance of his best friend. If I could, I would have cried, but I had to continue lying.
“We were together for . . . three years . . . but he was a workaholic. That was what ruined our relationship. It was really hard . . . I came here, and then . . . life goes on . . .”
I looked at Matthew’s face for any sign of hate, but to my astonishment he said, “So if you don’t want to go out with me, is it because you’re afraid of being in a new relationship and suffering again?”
Luckily I was already sitting down because my knees were trembling with relief. I owed a thank you to pop psychology. Matthew thought he had seen right through me, and that suited me just fine. His compassion indicated to me that I’d gotten out of that quagmire without a scratch and with a reward: out of respect for my so-called romantic distress, he was going to leave me alone about going out with him, and for a good while.
“How did you guess?” I said, sniffling and adopting a tone of desperation, all while resting my head on his shoulder so he couldn’t see me smile.
Even when he put his arm around my shoulders to comfort me, I didn’t feel at all guilty. After all, it was Karl who’d forced me to make up something. However, my smile crumbled at the thought of my boss’s reaction when his two friends, or at least one of them, hurried to recount this episode to him and mentioned the name I’d given. Suddenly, I wondered where I could hide for the nights to come.
I got out a tissue from my pocket and sat up to dab at my eyes and their false tears; that way, I could also escape the consoling embrace of my neighbor.
“Thanks for understanding. For me, love is out of the question since I can’t forget Phoenix.”
“I understand. But why that nickname? It’s silly,” Matthew asked.
Matthew had luckily turned his back to the two vampires, who didn’t appreciate his remark and who, out of loyalty, started to have eyes that shone brighter than normal. Oh boy.
“Um . . . he was in a serious car accident and he almost died. He chose that name to remind himself that life is precious and its ephemeral nature entails exemplary behavior.”
There it was. I’d remedied Matthew’s question by giving the good role to my boss; that would have to be enough to calm my two maniacs.
“You’re still in love with him, aren’t you?”
Gulp.
“It’s something I don’t want to talk about.”
Right on cue the lights went down and the film began. Angela whispered in my ear, “It is in your best interest to tell me more about your Phoenix. I want all the details.”
Oh boy. I felt a headache starting. In an effort to escape the whole situation, I closed my eyes and fell asleep without compunction.
The final explosion of the enemy spaceship woke me with a start, and I wondered where I was. The light snoring on my right told me that Matthew hadn’t found the film that interesting either. As for Angela . . .
“Do you think he likes me?” she murmured as I yawned noticeably.
He could answer you himself because he heard you as if you were seated right next to him. But I couldn’t tell her that.
“Huh?” Playing dumb seemed a good idea to me . . .
“François! He’s so gorgeous—the tall, dark, handsome type. I want him.”
. . . Or not.
I caught a movement in the corner of my eye. François must have leaped up out of his seat when he heard that the woman he desired returned his desire, and ardently.
“Uh, shouldn’t we talk about this later? I want to know how the film ends.”
“Pff! Yeah, right, you’ve been sleeping since the opening credits. But you’re right, it’s not really the time. That way, when we see each other again, I can grill you about your ex.”
“Hm . . .”
I hated Karl for making me lie through my teeth to my friends, especially since I was going to have to continue inventing an ex, who was Phoenix, no less. My temper was boiling, and the rest of the evening, I could barely contain it.
Walled up in silence, I was furious with every single one of my friends. At Karl for ruining my life, at F
rançois and Angela for complicating my life, and at Matthew for wanting to be a part of my life in a way I didn’t want. My human friends blamed my bad mood on the memory of my breakup, but the others didn’t need an explanation.
Before we left, Angela gave me a direct order to bring back “that angel who came down from heaven,” and I had to put all my energy into channeling the volcano that threatened to erupt. Not even Karl dared provoke me.
It was after midnight by the time we returned to the manor. Furious, I slammed my car door and marched inside. In the entryway, I crossed paths with my boss. He seemed tired and . . . demoralized. Seeing him like that made me feel suddenly guilty about leaving him alone while I went to the movies and made mistake after mistake. My rage volcano quickly deflated, yielding to real distress and tears dangerously close to spilling over.
I tried to pass Phoenix without looking at him, and I fled toward my room.
From upstairs, I heard him growl, “Shit, Karl! What did you do to her now?”
It was the first time I’d ever heard him swear, but I didn’t hear any more. I closed myself up in my room to cry in the dark.
A while later, someone knocked on my door. When I didn’t answer, that someone came in, walked around the bed, and sat down next to me. His unique smell revealed his identity before he could even speak.
“Sam, turn on the light, please.”
“You can see perfectly fine,” I protested.
He leaned over, bumping into me a little to switch on the lamp on the nightstand. I would have liked to stay in the dark so he wouldn’t see my red eyes and the pile of used tissues scattered across the floor and I wouldn’t have to face his accusing stare. I kept my eyes down, but he gently lifted my chin and turned my head toward him. Once again his expression was completely inscrutable, and I couldn’t stop shaking.
“You are entirely too emotional.”
Only when it was about him. Why was that? I didn’t feel as bad about having to lie to Matthew and Angela, but the very idea of losing Phoenix’s friendship and trust because I’d given away his real name made me nauseous.
“I don’t deserve your friendship . . .”
These few words were incredibly difficult to say, and without being able to do anything about it, I started to cry again, closing my eyes. I felt the caress of his fingers as he gently wiped away the uncontrollable flood of tears. At his touch, curiously, I relaxed and stopped crying. How did he do it?
“Nothing that Karl and François told me makes me think that. So why are you upset? The one at fault is that imbecile German.”
“But he didn’t tell everyone your real name, which is what I did. You trusted me, and I betrayed you.”
There was an insufferable silence. Then finally he said, “You protected us all from Karl’s foolishness. It does not matter what first name you used. You did not talk about my past to anyone, so you did not betray me.”
I stared at him, incredulous at his leniency. “You forgive me?”
“There is nothing to forgive. You did nothing wrong,” he said. “On the contrary, I should congratulate you. François says you are a wonderful actress.”
The wave of relief overwhelmed me completely, and I immediately felt better. Maybe too much better.
Without either of us expecting it, I dove into his arms and snuggled up to him. His words reassured me, but a part of me wanted more. Gripping his shirt, my face nestled in the crook of his neck, I felt him put his arms around me . . .
He must have heard my heart pounding, but I didn’t care. His embrace made me smile again, and soothed my conscience. Why did I feel so good now? His smell invaded me, and the contact with his cold, soft skin was as good as a caress. Only a few seconds must have passed, but even they made me wish that time would stop.
When he held me even closer to his chest, I slid my arms over his back and squeezed. In such a tight embrace, the coldness of his skin should have passed through our clothes and chilled me to the bone, but on the contrary, a veritable fire seemed to break out in every cell of my body. Like the evening when we danced, I lost control, and this time without a single drop of alcohol. My hands had a mind of their own, and they brushed up and down Phoenix’s spine rather immodestly.
I felt one of his hands playing with a lock of my hair while the other radiated heat on my back where he’d placed it. His lips were dangerously close to my neck, and that idea, for whatever reason, was completely intoxicating. My heart went into a panic and pounded harder than ever in my chest. What on earth was coming over me?
I had to regain control over my noisy heart, and I tried to pull back a little. Then we were face-to-face, with very little distance between us, and our hands not yet sensibly pulled away as they should have been. Phoenix had once again that profound look that drew me in completely. My universe toppled over, and I wanted to fall into the ocean of Phoenix’s blue eyes.
“Well, you are certainly taking your time to—Oh!”
The vision of paradise collapsed like the sound of glass breaking, yielding to reality. Noticing that we were really close to each other, our lips were less than an inch from touching, and, without knowing when it happened, our fingers were laced together, Phoenix and I broke away simultaneously, with an abruptness that reflected our total confusion.
In my doorway, Karl was doubled up with laughter, whereas François seemed embarrassed at having interrupted us.
“Ha-ha-ha! For someone so desperate, you seem completely blissful, Samantha. But this is not surprising. Ever since I have known him, Phoenix has been a champion at consoling damsels in distress. My apologies for interrupting.”
The insinuation that my boss could have taken advantage of my weakness to seduce me, and that it wasn’t the first time he might have done so, stabbed me right in the heart, more than the compromising situation in which Karl had found us. The portrait of Phoenix that Karl was painting seemed more like his own, a Don Juan without scruples—vain, selfish, and only concerned about adding another notch to his belt. That was the last straw.
My rage volcano woke up again and was determined more than ever to erupt. The red veil that only appeared in the most critical moments fell over my eyes again, and I got up slowly, staring at Karl like prey I wanted tear apart.
Phoenix tried to grab my hand to calm me down, but I pulled away from him unceremoniously.
“Karl, you had better leave the room,” my boss warned him.
The German vampire laughed in response.
“No, I am having too much fun with you two.”
“I hate you.” My tone indicated that it was the pure truth. Despite all the respect I had for Phoenix, I couldn’t pretend anymore. As if I were having an out-of-body experience, I saw myself moving around Phoenix and sliding my hand under my mattress and the bed frame.
“No, Sam.”
“Shut up.”
Taken aback by my aggressive answer, he didn’t stop me from getting out the gun I’d hidden under the bed. Seeing it, Karl gave a dry chuckle that increased my murderous rage tenfold.
“It’s high time that someone gave you the spanking your mother never gave you,” I said, applying my boss’s lessons in attack positions.
Karl immediately stopped laughing, and his eyes were blazing. “I would love to see that.”
Before Phoenix or François, incredulous at the grotesque scene before them, could react, I jumped up.
Infinitely faster than I was, Karl dodged, mocking me, except I’d anticipated his move and I took my first shot. I wasn’t playing at all. My conscious had fled my body and was watching my violent outburst from above. It was all very strange. In any case, Karl’s horrible smile of satisfaction disappeared completely when he saw his arm was injured.
Rendered as powerless as a human because of the silver poison, he was weak enough that I could take him on. But I’d forgotten one thing: he had five hundred years of training behind him. Human or not, I figured he was a better fighter. I was certain of it when he hit me with a first
punch that broke my jaw and a second that smashed two ribs before he violently slammed me to the ground.
Completely stunned, I still was able to see the incredible cruelty of his luminescent eyes as well as his mouth, which was twisted in a grimace filled with an indescribable hatred; he was about to club me in the face again, not to put me in my place, but to kill me. At the last instant, Phoenix sent him flying to the other side of the room with an authoritative uppercut. François knelt down next to me.
“Nom de Dieu!” I heard him mutter, horrified, propping my head up on his knees.
I couldn’t have been a pretty sight. When François pulled his hands out from under my head, one of them was covered in blood. My blood.
Phoenix had been wrong to think that I’d be able to beat a vampire injured by a silver bullet. He’d said that such a vampire would have only a human strength, but not that it would be the strength of a heavyweight boxing champ.
I started to slip into the fog of lost consciousness, but I heard fighting a few feet away. Then I saw a silhouette fly into the hallway and get up in evident pain.
Pointing an angry finger at his attacker, Karl howled, “Look at me, Phoenix! The way you treat me only proves what everyone is saying behind your back! You have gotten weak, and it is even worse now that you are with that human! Your love for her is sheer madness! Where is the friend who reduced those French soldiers to a pulp with me? I do not recognize you anymore, and I spit on the person you have become! You are dead to me until you get rid of that thing and remember what kind of vampire you really are!”
When Phoenix answered, his tone glacial, a friendship that had lasted several centuries shattered in an instant. “At any rate, not a vampire like you!”
I heard Karl’s footsteps as he left the house and Phoenix, perhaps forever . . . But before I was completely taken over by unconsciousness, a single sentence came to mind: “The protector must guide the steps of the one the Night has chosen, at the cost of great sacrifice.”
Samantha Watkins: Chronicles of an Extraordinary Ordinary Life (Samantha Watkins Series Book 1) Page 25