Vampires She Wrote

by Eve Paludan

  “Isn’t this the famous enclave where Brad and Angelina live?”

  “I think they sold their house to Ellen DeGeneres, not that I keep track. I don’t know who owns that house now.”

  “You seriously have a beachfront home here?” she asked.

  “I do, but it’s small for the neighborhood—a two-bedroom with a three-car garage that conceals my retro car fetish.”

  She grinned. “What else do you drive?”

  “Maybe I’ll show you sometime.” I had my Batmobile replica under a cover for now, as Kingsley and I’d gotten a little too much attention the last time we’d taken it out for a spin.

  “What do you like about living in Malibu?”

  “The usual. Ocean views and balconies hanging over the bluff. The smell of salt and fresh air. The ocean drowns out the traffic and it’s 24/7 white noise that’s great for day sleeping.”

  “Sounds heavenly.”

  “It’s why I bought it. And I can secure a small house much better than a big one. Square footage is overrated in a beach community.”

  “Still, the blood-selling business must be very good to you.”

  “It is, but I work it from every angle.”

  “I saw that tonight. Fang’s Place was hopping.”

  “But I love the kind of night I had tonight and it keeps me off the streets. No more trolling for my blood meals in dark alleys.”

  “I’ve sometimes consumed animal blood out of desperation.”

  “Yuck. No, thank you. I’m like a wine snob, except with blood.”

  She chuckled. “The blood club is very unique. You could franchise it on the down low.”

  “Someday. How’s the book business? Is it fun?”

  “A blast. But not as lucrative as your enterprise. Books keep a roof over my head in Vegas. And I do have a small pool.”

  “Sounds wonderful. We’re almost there.” I slowed the Lexus as I pressed my garage door opener. “You don’t have any luggage.”

  “The airline lost it, which is why I always keep a few pairs of panties and a toothbrush in my laptop bag when I travel. If I have to, I’ll just beg, borrow or steal some clothes and use your toothpaste and shampoo.”

  “That’s fine, but you should have said something on the way. I could have stopped at a Target.”

  “I’m good. I just need one of your old shirts to sleep in, if that’s okay.”

  “I’ll trade you my favorite denim shirt for the story behind that glow-in-the-dark vampire bite tattoo on your neck.”

  She put a trembling hand over it. “This?”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, realizing that her tattoo was the last thing she wanted to talk about.

  “It’s all right. I’ll tell you about it later.”

  Chapter 4

  I’m not usually a gentleman about such things, but I set her up in my guest room because every one of her books lined an eye-level shelf. I wondered if she’d noticed yet.

  I showered, shaved my face by feeling, as usual, and threw on a pair of black jeans but no shirt. I hoped I looked like the ripped vampires on the covers of her paranormal romances. Tall and lean, but muscular.

  We met up in the living room where the light sensors had already detected pre-dawn and an automatic mechanism had closed the blackout drapes. She’d showered, too, and was wearing my button-down denim shirt that I’d laid on the guest room bed while she showered in the guest bath. She looked adorable in it and was now barefoot. Her toenails were painted red like her fingernails. Without her high heels, I realized how petite she was. About Samantha Moon’s height.

  I sat and yawned a bit as I turned on the big-screen TV that displayed a live-cam feed of sunrise breaking with the cries of seagulls and sandpipers and even a pod of dolphins leaping in the distance.

  Justine sat near me on my white leather couch. “And here I thought I would never get to enjoy sunrise again. Certainly not a live dawn unfurling its rosy petals to the bleeding sky.”

  “You have a way with words.”

  “It’s the only thing I do well.”

  “I’m pretty sure that’s not true.”

  She winked. “Okay, Fang. You’ve set the stage. Are you ever going to kiss me?”

  I laughed. “I like it better when it’s my idea.”

  “You’re that old-fashioned?”

  “Probably not. I just don’t want to get distracted from talking about what happened to you at my club.”

  She hesitated. “I guess I should tell you everything from the very beginning.”

  “Okay. Where were you born and when did you cut your first fang?”

  She leaned in a bit. “You’re very funny.”

  “A little humor is sometimes how I cope with tough things. I’m actually quite concerned that you were attacked at Fang’s Place, but I want you to feel relaxed so you can tell me whatever you need to tell me. And then, we’ll talk about things and I’ll try to help you, okay?”

  She looked at the sunrise on the TV but didn’t start her story yet. “Can we watch this first?”

  “Sure. I try to watch sunrise every chance I get. I usually do yoga and then meditate during sunrise, but I won’t this morning since you’re here.”

  “You can. I don’t mind.”

  “I think not. I do it without yoga pants. Or any pants.”

  “You own yoga pants?”

  “You wish.”

  She giggled.

  That she appreciated my tongue-in-cheek sarcasm was a good sign that we would be able to communicate well.

  We watched the sun come up on my big screen and now, I could tell she was thinking about how to tell me what had happened to her. Obviously, she’d been traumatized, so I was patient. I sure didn’t want to pull my romantic moves on her at this point.

  When sunrise was over, I turned off the TV and put my arm on the back of the couch behind her. “Before you tell me what happened, I want to apologize that anything untoward happened to you at Fang’s Place. I strive to keep things safe and consensual there. If someone in my blood club compromised your safety and well-being, I want to try to make things right with you. And I’ll suspend or oust the culprit from the club if I deem that his permanent expulsion is deserved.”

  “What’s done is done,” she said huskily.

  “Look, I know I can’t turn you mortal again, but maybe I can help you, somehow, in your new life as a vampire. If it’s privacy and security you need, I own places all over Los Angeles. Safe houses. I know I called them crash rooms, but they’re actually homes. You could pick one and start a new life here if you wanted. I mean it. I’m appalled that someone turned you at my club.”

  “Oh, my goodness. That’s a very generous offer, but I’m not here for monetary restitution. I just want to know who did this to me and find out where he is.”

  “As do I. I don’t want vampires like that anywhere near my blood club. Assuming we’re successful in finding him, what are you going to do when we find him?”

  “That’s a tough question to answer.”

  “All the more reason why you should.”

  “All right. My entity wants me to stab my creator with silver, decapitate him, and bathe in the spurting fountain of his maroon-black blood.”

  “As I previously mentioned, you have quite a gift with words.”

  Chapter 5

  We now sat sideways on the couch, facing each other.

  “Should I back up from that confession?” Justine asked.

  “Okay. Do you want to tell me your mortal-to-vampire story?”

  “Well, from early on, I was pro-vampire. I rooted for them when they were supposed to be the bad guys. I even got myself kicked out of a few movie theaters.”

  I pointed to myself. “Same.”

  She smiled back. “From my childhood obsession with Dark Shadows to my teenage fascination with classics like Bram Stoker’s Dracula, I quickly moved on to Anne Rice vampire books, Van Helsing at the movies, and TV’s Buffy and The Vampire Diaries. I devoured vam
pire entertainment in all media and became convinced that these supernatural creatures truly existed. But I didn’t just admire vampires in fiction. I wanted to be one.”

  “Sounds like me,” I said, “being pulled into it by fiction. It was mostly books for me, not so much movies or TV. Slowly, my fascination developed into a quest for actual vampirism.”

  “Me, too,” she said. “It was a slippery slope that evolved from an admiration for vampire myth, stories and folklore into a desperate, real-life quest to find a vampire to turn me. But not just any vampire. Someone special.”

  “That was my aim, too. Go on.”

  “Well, I’d eaten, slept and breathed the paranormal for as long as I could remember until it seemed like the stories interwove with my own life history. I talked about the fictional characters as if they were friends, relatives, even lovers. I preferred their company to real people and buried myself in the fantasy. To other people, it was insane for me to be that into vampires, but it was my obsession and I proudly owned it.”

  “Sorry for interrupting, but we’re so much alike in this.”

  She sighed. “I wanted to be a full-blown creature of the night with ivory skin, ruby lips, luminous eyes and a glossy cascade of midnight hair. I wanted to be the epitome of undeath.”

  “Looks like you got your wish.”

  “That was just the beginning. More than that, I wanted to be bestowed with all of the privileges, powers and rights accorded to vampire legendry, including immortality.”

  I said, “I also assumed that an undead existence would come prepackaged with personal freedom, magical abilities, wealth, good looks, jet-setting, and most of all, charisma. Okay, forget most of the material goods. I just wanted charisma and immortality. And the Batmobile.”

  She laughed. “I wanted most of that, plus some killer vampire love story ideas and an eternity to write those books. And I really wanted Elvira-worthy breasts, but you can’t have everything.”

  I was annoyed with myself because she’d made me look there. And she knew it. I liked it that she was kind of naughty.

  She continued, “It was all I could think about, to get myself turned by someone special. I began looking at other people as if they might really be vampires in disguise. That man at the end of a dark bar drinking red wine and wearing a hoodie? What if he was a vampire? That night jogger in the city park? What if he was one?”

  “I did that and gave up, then started looking for vampires in Internet chat rooms,” I admitted.

  “Did you find one?”

  “Yes.”

  “And she turned you?”

  “I wish. We were online confidants for a long time before I learned what bar she frequented in Southern California. I moved here from the Midwest and got a bartender job at that bar to meet her. My plan worked, that part anyway.”

  “But she wouldn’t turn you?”

  “No. Another vampire set her sights on me and put me under a compulsion. I was her…”

  “Her love slave?” Justine asked.

  “Pretty much,” I said. “Rachel turned me, but she taught me, too. But even though she was my creator, I couldn’t love her. And even while I was under her compulsion, I knew she was growing progressively more evil and manipulative—I was powerless to fight her control or her advances. She had a terrifying dark side.”

  She reached for my hand and our fingers fit together companionably.

  I paused. “Maybe you don’t want to hear all this.”

  “Yes, I do. So, are these the secret chronicles of Fang?”

  “Always the writer, aren’t you?” I mused.

  “Constantly. Go on, Fang.”

  “My creator used me for her evil agenda. She owned me to my very soul, what was left of it. Only in hindsight did I understand that it’s what you do with your almost-omniscient power that makes you a good or bad creator.”

  “True. Evil creators groom their marks and earn their trust at the beginning and then, when the suckered pupil is in too deep, bam, they’re living in an inescapable nightmare.”

  I agreed. “It’s like knowing you’re possessed by evil and not being able to do anything about it. My creator dulled some of my senses and sensibilities to her distinct advantage. She was that good at commandeering my psyche.”

  “How well I understand this.” Justine squeezed my hand. “The path got darker and narrower and you were boxed in?”

  “Exactly. Terrible consequences ensued from that relationship. The fallout is permanent and long-reaching.”

  Justine said softly, “I paid dearly for seeking to be turned when I attracted the attention of someone who was in the proximity of the good vampire whom I’d desperately sought to turn me.”

  “This is my exact story.”

  “I’m sorry. I know something of your pain.”

  “And I know something of yours. She gave me immortality, but she made my undeath so dangerous that—”

  “You had to kill her?”

  “She’s dead. Let’s leave it at that.”

  “We’re kindred spirits, Fang. We both wanted to become vampires, but the circumstances of our turnings scarred us.”

  “This is the major flaw of most turnings.” I paused. “If I ever turned someone, she wouldn’t be a slave or a captive. She would be mentored, respected, and taught how incredible vampirism can be.”

  “Sounds wonderful,” Justine said. Her eyes darted back and forth as if she wanted to tell me something.

  “Apologies. I interrupted your story.”

  “It’s all right. I wanted to know your turning story, too.”

  “You’ve heard all I want to say about it. When did you get turned?” I asked.

  “A year ago. It was one hot night in Las Vegas, at Caesars Palace during a concert when I first saw you.”

  “What? You saw me there?” I sputtered.

  “Yeah, I saw you kicking ass with some other supernaturals, trying to save that blonde singer when shots were suddenly fired.” She let go of my hands to gesture with hers. “Wait, let me back up. The President was in the audience surrounded by Secret Service types with the curly wires behind their ears. Armed Marines were milling around. You weren’t sitting far away from the Prez and the First Lady. You were with a couple of other vampires, a dark-haired vampiress vixen who kind of reminded me of me and an old, wrinkly vamp with a spray tan and creepy, yellowish-orange eyes that glinted in the darkened theater. Also, a hairy palooka was sitting with you, too—not a vampire, though—a guy with an impressive jawline and lots of white teeth that flashed now and then. He had massive hairy knuckles. I remember that he was holding you down from something he didn’t want you to do. What a big oaf he was, but you were putting up with him.”

  I held in a laugh at her descriptions of Kingsley, Sam and Dracula. “And?”

  “The spit hit the spam when shots were fired. All hell broke loose with the Secret Service and Marines. You were a hero, along with your friends. I saw what you did as across the theater, I dove to the floor and with the bullets flying, I realized that the end of the show wasn’t faked.” She paused. “Was that singer with the crazy voice your angel?”

  I nodded. “Yes. How did you end up in Los Angeles at my blood club?”

  “That night, I followed you.”

  “How? We went over rooftops.”

  “Parkour. You know, building jumping?”

  “That’s an insane sport.”

  “It is, but I love the thrill of it. Anyway, I was so taken with you that I tailed you as the hairy monster carried you away in his teeth.”

  Kingsley.

  “The other two vampires could fly, but obviously, you couldn’t.”

  I nodded. “You followed me to L.A.?”

  “Well, I had to interview you.”

  “Interview with a Vampire? I think that’s been done.”

  She laughed. “After years of searching, I’d found my first vampire. Well, vampires, I should say. You and the dark-haired vixen and the undead old fart
in the white leisure suit.”

  I dearly hoped that Dracula was not somehow hearing this.

  “Yup, that was us, all right.”

  “I was so intrigued that I had to meet you. I wanted to find out everything about vampirism from a real vampire. And… I had the hots for you, too.”

  “Oh, my.”

  “I was so impressed with you that I wanted you to turn me.”

  I shook my head. “You could have been killed, following me like that.”

  “Well, I’m undead now, aren’t I? Not the endless dirt nap that could have happened, though. Anyway, I stalked you all the way back to Echo Park,” she said without a hint of remorse.

  “Should I be appalled or flattered?”

  “The latter, I hope.”

  “Well, you are my favorite vampire author. But I’ve never heard of an author stalking one of her fans.”

  “I didn’t know you were my fan.”

  “True. But I could have mistaken you for a vampire hunter and killed you.”

  “I didn’t think of that at the time. I was lurking behind your blood club, waiting for you to leave so I could meet you and beg you to turn me. And convince you to do other things to me.”

  I burst out laughing. “So, you are as wicked as your heroines.”

  “Fang, I told you. They are me. I am them.”

  “I see.”

  “That night, instead of meeting you like a groupie by the stage door, I was assaulted by another vampire, kidnapped, and held for a year in his underground dungeon. If I hadn’t had access to a notebook computer to write novels, I would have gone insane.”

  “I feel responsible that you were taken from outside my club.” My hands closed into fists. “Who is he? Do you know anything about him?”

  “He calls himself Sharky, but that isn’t his real name. He’s the one who hired someone to give me this vampire tattoo that exactly matched the teeth marks he made on me last June sixteenth.”

  “Why would this Sharky have you tattooed like that?”

  “To mark me, so other vampires would know I was his property.”

  “That’s repulsive,” I said.

  “Tell me about it.”