“Nice move. Perfect ten for that one.” I clap.
Kim hands him a small towel and a bottle of water. “Same time tomorrow?” she asks, as she walks to the door.
Jack’s eyes follow her, and I’m sure he’s staring at her butt as she leaves. What kind of yoga positions were they practicing before I arrived?
“Have a seat, buddy,” he says.
He tosses me an Evian from the coffee table and I sit in one of his big leather chairs.
“Nice shiner.”
My eye hurts just at the mention of it. “Yeah, I had another run-in with Bao after Mom called you the other day.”
“I hope you gave him two black eyes. Want some aloe for that cut?” He inspects my stitches.
“No, I’m cool.”
Ignoring my reply, he walks over to his kitchen and opens a large stainless steel refrigerator. It’s bright and clean inside, mostly fruits, vegetables, and lots of bottled waters and organic juices. He finds a small tube of aloe, walks over to me and squeezes it into his hand, patting it around my eye.
“Ouch, that stings,” I complain.
“Not for long.”
My eye starts to feel numb and I relax a bit. “What is it?”
“Real aloe, not that rubbish you get at the vegan grocery stores.”
He closes the aloe tube. Despite just having done an amazing ab workout, Jack barely sweats. He’s tall, with lean muscles and olive skin, which is unusual for a Vampire. It’s not unheard of, but he’s like a black swan in a flock of pale white ones. Despite Jack’s chronological age of 142 years, he looks timeless.
My mom is nine years younger. I’m told she was born in 1880 in Germany, near the Bohemian Forest that borders the Czech Republic. Not sure why they emigrated from Germany to America. Neither of them talks much about the old country, or why they changed their name from Hundertmark to Hunter. What I do know is that Vampires don’t live forever like they once did; but they age gracefully.
“So, tell me about this fight,” Jack says.
“See for yourself.” I hand him my phone with the video already cued up.
He holds it up and I relive the event by watching his facial expressions. He’s a mix of surprise, winced pain and smiles as I taunt the crowd. “Oooh, good line at the end, ha!”
“Not bad for a Goth, right?” I say with pride.
He gives me a high five. “I’m glad you stood your ground, Darius. We have to work on your martial arts moves, but I like your style. Bravado is half of it, and you’ve got that part down.”
“I’m worried he’ll come after me again next week at school.”
“Ah, revenge is a dish best served cold,” my uncle says.
“Huh?” Another one of Jack’s sayings that makes no sense to me.
“This bully will wait. He’ll let things cool off for a while, and then seek his revenge when you least expect it.”
“That makes me even more nervous. I’d rather bring an end to his bullying now.”
“Have patience. I’ll work with you,” Jack says calmly. “I’ve got your back.”
How exactly will he have my back when I’m at school? Even though my eye is now numb from his real aloe, my anxiety climbs higher.
“Who’s the girl?” Jack asks, as he replays the video.
“Angel, you’ve met her before.”
“No, not Angel, the Goth girl next to her,” Jack says.
“Oh, that’s Shelby.”
“She’s likes you. I can see it in her expression. You dating her?”
“No, she transferred to my school. Yesterday was the first time we ever spoke.”
“She’s got her eye on you, Darius. What’s her blood type?”
“A.”
Jack nods, watching the video. “And you have O blood, so if you two mated, your offspring could be an O. If Shelby is from a traditional Vampire family, they’d consider you a good catch for their daughter.”
“Maybe, I suppose...she’s transforming.”
“No more Reds for her? Then you need to be very careful if you date her,” Jack says, setting my phone on the coffee table. “When Goth girls transform, their hormones are in hyper mode.”
I’ve heard guys talk about how girls who are transforming are easy targets for sex. I was never sure if the guys were exaggerating, though.
“What happens when they’re in hyper mode?” I ask.
“Goth boys who step off the Reds get all lusty, not much different than Normal teenage boys, actually. But Goth girls who step off the Reds are eager to find a mate, so they’re more tempted to bite boys. Don’t let her bite you. You’re both too young.”
This is all consistent with what I’ve heard from guys. “If I date her, we won’t bite, I promise.”
“Even if you’re on the Reds, don’t bite and don’t get bitten,” Jack warns me again.
“I know, if I’m bitten I could transform into a Vampire.”
“No, you would only transform if you were in love with her. The bitten has to love the biter. If it’s just lustful attraction and not love, then a bite is just a bite, like a hickey. Your mom hasn’t explained this to you?”
“No! How do you know if you’re in love?” I ask.
“Ah, the age-old question, how do you know it’s love? You don’t know! You never know for sure,” Jack says. “But by dating and spending time together, you’ll have a pretty good idea if you’re in love.”
“You’ve dated women,” I say. “Haven’t you been in love with any of them?”
“Dude, leave me out of this,” Jack says with a guilty smile. “I’m your uncle, your mentor, but not your role model. Remember, the Reds prevent you from transforming into a Vampire, but the Reds aren’t birth control. And if you’re bitten, you could transform. And Reds don’t prevent you from contracting or spreading diseases like HIV or V2.”
In my seventh-grade health class our teacher cautioned us about all of this. It was as bad as watching those driver’s ed videos. You’re so scared you never want to do it.
“She mentioned she sees more vivid colors and her taste is stronger, too,” I say.
“Stage One, those are classic symptoms of the change,” Jack says.
“She also has this other ability. She was checking me out from the back of the classroom as if she were standing right behind me. I could feel her presence.”
“Ah, she’s attracted to you, bro. She’s calling you like a Siren from Greek mythology. Use caution.”
“It felt like she was right behind me. How do you explain that?”
“Bi-location,” Jack says. “She’s developing the ability to be in two places at once.”
“Vampires can really do that?”
“I’ve only met two Vampires in my lifetime that could bi-locate, and they were both women,” Jack says. “Vampire bloodlines that have the ability to bi-locate are very powerful.”
“She has power over me,” I admit.
“That’s because you’re on the Reds. You’re like a Normal. You feel the world like a Normal, for the most part. But inside you there’s a Vampire waiting to take flight. You have to get off those Reds, Darius.”
Mom said to ignore Jack’s advice, to not let Jack talk me into stopping. He rants about this all the time. “Now that I know she’s signaling me, what should I do?”
“Address her head-on, and ask her out on a date if you want to,” Jack says. “But take it slow, my friend. When are you planning to transform?”
“Mom and I agreed that on my sixteenth birthday I would step down from the Reds.”
“If you can wait that long,” Jack says. “Your dad was able to hold off. He married your mom as a Normal, and he wasn’t bitten until after you and Kira were born.”
This was always a frustrating mystery to me. Why had my dad waited so long for my mom to bite him? Anytime I’ve asked her about this, she’s avoided the topic entirely.
“How come my dad waited?”
Jack stands and walks to the center of the loft
and begins stretching, as if maybe his muscles are finally cramping from his workout. “That’s a long story, bro.”
“So? I’ve got time. Tell me what happened to my parents.”
“They broke up,” Jack says. “Half the marriages end in divorce for Normals, and it’s no different for today’s Vampires. There was a time we mated for life, but the gene pool was diluted a long time ago. Too many Vampires mating with Normals.”
“Give me details. When my mom bit my dad, he became a Vampire. He loved my mom and once bitten, he transformed, right?”
“Correct.”
“Vampire life too hard on him?” I ask. “Did he leave the marriage because he regretted transforming?”
“No, he left your mom because he enjoyed Vampire life too much,” Jack says. “He had bloodlust. He couldn’t control his urges, because Normals who transform always have a hard time adapting to their new senses.”
“He left her for another woman?”
“You have to ask your mother about that.”
“She’s too embarrassed to talk about it,” I explain. “Tell me, Jack.”
“Not one woman—many women,” Jack says, almost in a whisper. “But only after he learned that your mom had bitten another man before she married your dad. There’s another man out there with her mark. She hasn’t explained this to you?”
“Dad wasn’t her first bite of passion?” I ask.
A knock echoes and the doors slide open and there’s my mom, holding her Starbucks cup. For a moment Jack and I sit there, speechless, wondering if she has been listening to our conversation. Her face has a casual smile, so she probably only just walked in on our conversation.
“Hi, am I interrupting something?” Mom stands in the doorway with her latte and she looks younger to me, maybe because she’s in the presence of her older brother.
“Hey, Virginia! No, just two guys shooting the breeze,” Jack says. “Join us.”
Mom enters, looking at both of us, trying to read our moods and detect what she walked in on. “I hope you’re giving Darius advice on how to handle that bully.”
“I can show him more self-defense moves,” Jack says. “That bully, what’s his name?”
“Bao,” I say.
“Yeah, that Bao is a big kid, and at least three inches taller,” Jack says. “The best way for Darius to stand up against Normals like that is to get off the Reds and let nature take its course.”
Mom looks to me. “We agreed to wait until you were at least sixteen.”
“I know; he’s only suggesting it as one option.”
“Well, I’m not ready for you to transform.”
“If it’s about the government subsidy, I have money,” Jack says.
It’s interesting to watch their sibling dynamics. My mom is meek around her older brother. She seems to consider his advice. Then she pushes back.
“It’s not about money. Your money isn’t the solution to everything,” Mom says. “Darius can wait one more year. Can’t you teach him how to fight off this bully?”
“It’s not only the bully I’m worried about,” Jack says. “It’s the girl.”
Mom turns and looks right at me. “What girl, Angel?”
“No, there’s a new girl at school. Her name is Shelby,” I explain.
“She’s a Goth who’s transforming into a Vampire. She’s attracted to your son,” Jack says. “You know what that’s like, Virginia.”
Mom bites her lower lip and seems to reflect on her own transformation. For a moment she’s lost in thought, then she finally sighs and says, “Yes, I was a teen Goth at one time—”
“And you know it takes months after stepping off the Reds for a Goth to transform into a Vampire,” Jack says. “If you’re willing to speed up the transformation, I can order some Blood Orange Soda for Darius.”
“What’s Blood Orange Soda?” I ask.
“It’s a potion that would speed up your transformation,” Jack says. “Why wait months to transform when I can make you a Vampire in weeks?”
There are supposed to be elixirs that dilute the effects of the Reds. They have exotic names like Blood Shot, Venom and Cherry Dust. I always thought that people juicing on these drinks were really taking mild steroids, that the hype was much more of an urban legend.
Mom remains silent as I fidget with the bottle of water and glance at each of them before she says, “Darius, it’s time to go. Why don’t you leave Uncle Jack and me alone for a few minutes, and I’ll meet you at the car?”
“We have to work on your self-defense moves,” Jack says. “Now that Bao knows your fighting style, you have to switch it up. Come back next week and we’ll work on it.”
“See you later, Jack,” I say, zipping my coat.
Walking out of Jack’s loft alone, I hear them arguing through the door. Whenever Jack and Mom have a private conversation, they revert to their native language, which is German. I recognize a few words like lieben, which is love and geschlechtsverkehr, which is sex.
My mom wants to protect me, and Jack has concerns for me, too, but they obviously have different opinions on how to raise a Goth kid of the New Millennium.
On the drive home, I’m riding shotgun instead of driving. Mom grips the steering wheel tightly and I know she’s thinking about what Jack suggested to her, that I get off the Reds and speed up my transformation. Mom is usually the one peppering me with questions. This time we’re alone in the car, and I feel like I can ask her almost anything.
“Jack told me more about the ‘birds, bees and biting’,” I say.
She raises an eyebrow. “Really? What version did he give you?”
“He explained how biting only transforms people into Vampires if the Bitten feels love for the Biter.”
“Oh,” she says quietly. “So you have questions for me?”
“Yeah, several,” I say. “My questions have to do with Dad.”
“You’re old enough now, go ahead and ask,” she says, gripping the steering wheel tighter.
“You were born a Vampire and you married Dad, who was a Normal. How come you didn’t bite him as soon as you two were married? Then Kira and I would’ve been born pure Vampires.”
“Biting a Normal and asking him or her to become a Vampire is a big step,” she says. “I learned the hard way to not pressure somebody into a biting.”
“You’ve bitten others?” I ask.
“For feedings, yes,” she says.
“What about biting for love?” I ask.
“Only one other,” Mom confesses, as her eyes stare off into the distance while she drives. “I was in love with a man named Jonathan before I met your father. I was a freshman at the university and he was a sophomore, and we hit it off as soon as I arrived on campus that fall. By the second semester I was madly in love with him. He was funny and smart and he was a writer. He’d sometimes leave me poems and love letters under my dorm room door. By summer, I was sure he was the one, and one night and I asked him if I could bite him.”
She pauses for a long moment. I hate to pull her away from what seems to be such a happy memory, but I’m dying to know what happened.
“And he said yes?” I ask.
She blushes. “In the heat of passion, it’s hard to say no. He agreed, and turned his neck for me to bite. For a man to submit to a woman like that, it’s a big step in their relationship. A male Vampire biting a female Normal is more common—but a female Vampire biting a male Normal is so rare.”
“He didn’t become a Vampire from that bite?”
“No…” she says, with disappointment that hangs in the air.
“You bit him, but he wasn’t in love with you,” I say, thinking back on what Jack told me earlier, that a Bitten must love the Vampire who does the biting.
“That’s what I thought at first. For the next several weeks I expected our love to grow deeper, and for Jonathan to begin transforming. He didn’t. I asked if he loved me and he assured me he was in love. He said he wasn’t ready to transform into
a Vampire, so he’d had his doctor write him a prescription for Reds.”
“He prevented the transformation?”
“Yes, and I was angry, foolishly so. I wanted him to be a Vampire like me. I was too young to see his side of it. He needed time to explain it to his parents and friends. The rest of the summer was hard for us,” my mom says.
“He broke up with you?” I ask.
“No, I broke up with him. As much as I loved him, I had to set him free. I thought we should both date other people before we chose marriage or before he transformed, if he were going to transform at all. I felt so terrible about it.”
“How did you break up with him?”
“I wrote him a note.”
“You sent him a break-up letter?” I ask in surprise.
“I didn’t mail it. I handed it to him on our last date. I sat with him while he read my written words. It was ironic that I gave a writer a goodbye letter. It was really a love letter. I wanted to remain friends, and I thought maybe down the road, after we both dated others, if we still felt passion for each other...” Her voice tapers off into a waning breath.
“How did he take it?” I can only imagine the guy was pissed off.
“He was hurt, but he took it much better than I had expected. My friends had prepared me for this, and cautioned me that some men don’t take break-ups well. Jonathan was unique. He understood it, but he said he couldn’t be my friend. He said he still loved me, and that it would be too hard to talk on the phone or hang out only as friends.”
“He let you go, which is what you wanted, right?”
“Yes and no. I needed time to meet new people. He needed to decide if he was ready to transform into a Vampire. The next year on campus was hard for us. We dated others, and it was always heartbreaking to see him with another woman. And I never expected that my First Bitten would vanish from my life.”
“When did Dad come into the picture?”
“You’ll recall your dad was a student teacher at the university? Well, he arrived on campus when I was a junior. We met in the cafeteria, and we hit it off right away. He was a graduate student, only three years older than me. We really clicked as soon as we met. He was also a Normal, and a great musician. For some reason I was more attracted to Normals.”
Blood Orange Soda: Paranormal Romance Page 5