by J A Campbell
She snatched the bottle away from him and held it upside down over her tongue, wishing for one more drop.
"I think that's the last of it," he said as he pried the bottle from her fingers.
"What was that?" She gasped, nearly choking in her want for more. "I feel so alive. I feel I could run forever."
"All in good time, little princess." He smiled and fetched a small piece of paper from his pocket, handing it to her along with the pack.
"This is an address where you can meet some friends of mine. Your train leaves in an hour. You'll be in a sleeper car and will want to cover the windows with this cloak. It is absolutely imperative you stay out of the sunlight and find a place to sleep during the day. Do you understand?" His eyes bored into her, willing her to understand his words.
"This address is in Arizona! I can't leave my home! I haven't any belongings and my stepmother and Darren must be worried sick!"
"Darren Kirkpatrick, the werewolf? No, he would kill you as soon as look at you now. And your stepmother is the one who sent me to kill you in the first place." He shook his head in disagreement.
"That's ridiculous," she retorted. "Darren loves me, and my stepmother would never do anything to harm me."
"What do you remember of last night?"
"I remember someone strong crushing me from behind, and a pain in the side of my neck." She touched the spot where he had bitten her.
"I am the one who bit you." He saw her eyes fill with fear again. "Your stepmother hunted me down and offered my life in exchange for taking yours, but I couldn't bear to see such a beauty destroyed. You are a vampire now."
"I don't believe you," she whispered. "Why would Lydia want me dead?"
"I didn't ask. All I know is that you're a dead woman if you return. Your werewolf is bound by law to report any vampire he finds, and any council members who find you are bound by duty to hunt you down. My friends will help you. Please come. You need to board the train and sleep before dawn breaks." The old vampire led the weeping girl out the door and into the night.
* * *
Lydia paced around the blood-soaked ground beside the barn as she awaited word from the vampire. Marianna hadn't come back last night, so she assumed the creature must have kept his end of the bargain. Though why he had taken the body with him seemed a mystery to her.
A few minutes later, the devil himself appeared with a bloodied bag in his hands.
"Did you finish the job? What's in the bag?" She grabbed his arm impatiently, demanding an answer.
"I have done that which you have asked of me. There wasn't much left when I finished with her, but I saved the heart as proof." He held the bag out toward her.
Lydia snatched the bag from his hands and peered inside at the bloodied heart. A sense of remorse squeezed her chest for a brief moment before she forced it down and sealed it away, never to be opened again.
"You've upheld your end of the bargain. Now I will fulfill mine." She drew a stake from the wide belt she wore over her dress and plunged it into his heart before he had time to react.
"You may go now," she sneered as he died.
* * *
She was still standing over the body when Darren returned from his monthly run. He didn't want to leave Marianna alone with her grief, so he rushed over as soon as he could change back into human.
He stopped when he saw the body on the ground and looked at Lydia. The moment their eyes met, he sensed something was terribly wrong and his heart grew numb with fear. She covered her face with her hands and flung herself into his arms. He knew that his beloved Marianna was dead. He held the woman and wept on her shoulder.
"Where is she?" He questioned when he could bring himself to speak.
"I don't know where he left the body. I forgot to ask before I killed him." She sobbed, while wiping tears from beneath her eyes.
He silently let tears fall down his face while she explained that it must have been revenge for killing his friends. "This is all my fault. How can I ever forgive myself? How can I live without her when I've already lost her father?" She murmured as she again buried her face in her hands.
"No, you can't blame yourself. You were only doing your job. She wouldn't want you to feel guilty for doing what's right." He drew her back into his arms.
"The beast must've gotten poor Sally Carlisle, too," he said, hugging her tighter as he shed another angry tear.
"Who?" She looked up at him.
"That bag at your feet is filled with her blood. I know because I patched her up last month when she cut herself in biology class. I can smell it."
She looked up at him in shock and then over at the dead vampire. "I can't believe it. He must have turned her," she said seemingly to herself.
"Turned who?" His eyes grew wide as realization hit him. "Are you saying he changed Marianna into a monster?" He was horrified of what her answer might be.
She didn't reply, but instead glared poisonous daggers at the devil's spawn who'd finally finished bleeding into the dirt.
* * *
Marianna heard a bell chime as she entered the small flower shop in the city of Flagstaff, Arizona. There were only a few hours to spare before dawn, and she had already resigned herself to her lonely fate. The pain that caused the tears she freely shed days ago had finally settled into a numbing ache. She looked again at the small paper Robert had given her with an address and instructions. She waited for a moment before a small elderly woman came from behind a dark green curtain toward the back of the shop. The woman smiled as she approached and wiped condensation from a vase with a towel.
"May I help you, dear?" She seemed kind and friendly.
"Um, I'm looking for the owner," Marianna said uncertainly.
"That would be me," the woman said. Her eyes suddenly looked a little less cheery, though her smile remained.
"I was told to tell you that Robert sent me. He said someone here could help me." Marianna tried to hope for the best, but the last few weeks had left her heartbroken and scarred and for the first time she was scared things might not work out for the better. She didn't know what she would do if the woman couldn't help her.
"Ah, I see." Her smile again reached her eyes. "Robert always did have a love for pretty girls. Of course I can help you. Follow me, please."
The old woman led Marianna back through the curtain and down a long hallway before entering through a door leading to the basement. Once inside, the woman reached down and moved some of the dirt away from around a board near the farther end of the room and lifted.
"There you go, dear. You can stay down there until nightfall. I'll have a meal for you and my other guest shortly."
She held the small door up as Marianna nervously descended into the dimly lit room and closed it above her once her feet rested on the floor. A moment later she heard the sweeping of a broom above her head. The woman must have been arranging the dirt back into place.
She found herself in a small ten-foot-by-ten-foot room with a small wooden table surrounded by two chairs on one wall and three beds, one resting against each of the other walls. On one of those beds, a handsome young man sat. He wore an inexpensive though well-tailored suit with a crisp white shirt and suspenders. He held one book in his left hand, two on his lap. There were various papers and books strewn about the bed beside him. His right hand held a pen poised over a large leather bound journal that rested atop one of the books on his lap.
He didn't look up at her until she sat on her bed, though she had tried to do so quietly. If he were too distracted to notice her entering the room and walking about, then she didn't want to disrupt whatever he was working on.
"Oh, hello!" His entire face lit up at the sight of her. "I'm terribly sorry! I thought you were the meal Mrs. Carson should be delivering shortly. I'm Donald Young. And what is your name?" He spoke fast, as if he were trying to fit in as many words as possible before she could interrupt. So she waited a brief moment to make sure he was truly done speaking before answering him.
"My name
is Marianna. It's a pleasure to meet you." She gave her first real smile in days, amused at the haphazard way he spoke. She found it endearing.
"It's a pleasure to meet you, too, Marianna," he replied. "I take it you're hiding out from the council?"
"I am. What is it that you're working on?" She asked quickly before he could ask her anything more. It was still far too new for her to speak of.
"Well, I'm a scholar. A writer," he began, speaking quickly again as if he were still afraid of her losing interest and running away. "We have to make money somehow, so I write history textbooks and sell them under different pseudonyms to various universities and schools throughout the world. Right now I'm working on a European history book that I'm writing in Portuguese." He paused for a moment and looked at her to see if he still held her attention.
"You speak Portuguese? That's very fascinating. Do you speak many other languages?" she asked, hoping to reassure him that she was still interested in what he had to say. Apparently it worked, because he went on again, this time with a little more fervor than before.
"Oh, yes, you don't get to be as old as I am without learning a few extra languages." He would have gone on longer, but the door opened again. This time a young African American boy came down the stairs and looked at the vampires with a vacant expression.
"Enjoy your meal," the old woman said gaily.
"Ladies first," Donald offered kindly while gesturing to the young man.
Suddenly she felt very sick. She didn't like the idea of feeding from a person, and the thought that this nice young man she was starting to like would drink from this boy, and worse, that she wanted to as well, made her very dizzy. She could smell his blood, practically taste it. Her hunger and desire for it nearly drove her mad, but she was still able to hang on to a few shreds of humanity to allow her revulsion to outweigh her thirst.
"Um, no thank you. I've brought my own." She held up the last bottle that Robert had sent her with.
Donald gestured for the young man to sit beside him–on top of the papers–and she tried not to watch as he bit into his wrist. The sound of the liquid being pulled from his veins made her heady with thirst. Pulling her gaze away from the two, she opened her bottle and began to drink. The liquid was several days old and no longer tasted as delicious as it had on that first day, but at least it took the edge off her hunger.
Donald suddenly pulled his lips from the boy's wrist only minutes after he began. She wondered what was wrong until he helped the boy up and sat him in one of the chairs at the table before knocking on the door above his head. A few moments later Mrs. Carson reappeared after opening the door again.
"Thank you, Mrs. Carson," he said graciously and she nodded in return. "He tasted divine."
"I'll have your parcels ready for you after sundown."
Donald helped the lad up to the old woman and went back to his seat as she closed the door again.
Marianna merely stared with her mouth agape. "He's still alive."
"Not all of our kind feel it necessary to kill when we feed," he remarked, suddenly sounding like her father lecturing her for a sweet tooth. "We pay Mrs. Carson very well to collect blood for us which we pick up weekly. The times we do feed directly from a human, she will heal their wounds and erase their memories so there is no evidence of vampiric assault. It's kept us safe and hidden from the Council far longer than others of our kind."
"I didn't know it was possible to feed without killing. The vampire who attacked me drained me near to death before he changed me," she said.
"How long ago were you turned, if you don't mind my asking?"
"A few days ago. Monday I believe."
He stared at her in astonishment. "You're barely a fledgling. You're an infant by our standards and it was foolish of your maker to leave you alone. You could have killed a lot of people."
At those words he stopped and looked at her as if he were too afraid to ask what he wanted to know.
"I've never killed anyone," she answered his unspoken question and noted his relief at her words. "I mostly stayed in my own room on the train and avoided people as much as possible."
He thought for a moment before speaking. "I should probably speak with my brothers first, but I don't see how they would mind if you're willing to do some work around the house. You see, none of us are very good housekeepers…"
"Are you inviting me to come live with you?" She suddenly smiled.
"Ah, yes. I think we could use a female presence around the house. I'm sure you would be more than welcome. Unless of course, you dislike the idea of living with seven old vampires…"
"I would love to come live with you." She laughed and laid her head on the pillow of her cot as he did the same atop the papers and books. Dawn was finally approaching, and for the first time in days, she fell asleep without crying.
* * *
After several hours of driving, and many more hours of travel by horseback, they finally came to an old horse stable next to the ruins of a farmhouse. There were several other buildings dotted among the trees, but she couldn't make them out. Donny, as she took to calling him now, set the crate of blood into a cellar by the ruins and she waited while he took care of the horse around the back.
A little while later he appeared and led her toward some stables before stopping just outside the door and turning toward her.
"I have to apologize in advance for my brothers. They can be a bit rowdy at times." For a moment he looked like he was about to say something else, but instead he just shrugged, opened the door and led her inside by the hand.
Apparently, the stables had been converted into a house with small bedrooms where the doors were built to not let any light through. She noticed the whole building was remodeled that way, and she could see the extra caution they added to keep themselves safe as they slept. She also noticed the clutter. Everywhere. Books, papers, cups, with very few clean dishes or pots and pans. She was surprised they had any at all, as she couldn't imagine what they would use them for.
Just past the bedrooms was a larger area with comfortable looking couches–at least they would be comfortable if they weren't cluttered with books, tools, and other odds and ends–a long picnic table, a wood burning stove, and small kitchen area.
Sitting at the cluttered table were six men of seemingly various ages, anywhere between sixteen to mid-forties if she had to guess. Don himself looked as though he couldn't be older than twenty-two or twenty-three, but he had informed her that they stayed looking the physical age at which they died.
Two of the men at the table were arguing over something. Rather, one of them was shouting angrily and the other was simply smiling broadly as if he were amused.
"It couldn't have been anyone other than you, Henry! You were they last person I saw with that axe and you said yourself that you didn't hand it over to anyone else! Why won't you just admit that you broke the damn thing and be done with it?"
"Like I told you a hundred times, I didn't break it! It was just fine when I set it on the hook. I'm telling you, that mine is haunted! You're the only one who hasn't admitted to having anything strange happen down there," he replied, his grin growing even wider.
"Well, if you aren't lying about it, why do you have such a stupid-ass grin on your ugly face?" The face of the older, hairier man grew red in frustration.
"Because your nose turns bright red when you're angry and you look like a clown. Everyone finds clowns funny. Why shouldn't I smile?" He laughed, and the other man's face grew a deeper shade of crimson. He was enraged.
At this point, Donny cleared his throat. All eyes turned to him a moment before settling on the beautiful woman standing beside him.
"This here is Marianna, and I've invited her to live with us for a while. I didn't think you all would mind," he said brightly.
She thought there would be some intense questioning before his family would agree to letting a strange woman simply move in with them, but they surprised her. As soon as he finished talking, all
but the angry man stood and started giving her warm words of welcome until Donny asked them to quiet down and introduce themselves one at a time, starting from youngest to eldest. The youngest brother–or at least he looked like he couldn't be more than sixteen–introduced himself as Henry. He was the one that the angry man had been arguing with. Next was Steven, and then David. Donny was apparently in-between David and Bruce. Then there was Sam. After Sam introduced himself, she looked expectantly at the angry man for a moment before Henry chimed in.
"His name is George. Apparently, he wasn't there the day our mother taught us manners."
At this, George walked around the table and came to stand before Marianna and Donny.
"You idiot," he said. "We don't know anything about this woman. We don't know what she's been leaving around behind her. She could have led the Council right to us!"
Donny straightened and looked his brother full in the eye. "She's only a few days-old and has yet to even feed from a human. She refused a fresh meal and drank days old blood instead. I don't think we need to worry about her."
She broke into tears at these words. She hadn't even considered that her being here could lead Lydia right to these nice men.
"George is right." She hiccupped as she sobbed. "My stepmother is a council member." And she began her story, starting with the death of her father and ending when Donny invited her home with him. She felt terrible that being there put these men in danger.
"She's a danger to us all," George interjected, but his words were drowned out by the others crowding around her to offer whatever words of comfort that entered their heads and every one of them–other than George–promised to protect her with their lives. They weren't used to visitors, especially those of the attractive female variety. Those trapped around the age of adolescence thought risking their lives was a small price to pay for her company. They worked hard for almost an hour to convince her that they were all safe and far enough from civilized society and the prying eyes of the Council. Eventually, she agreed to stay...unless her stepmother started poking her nose around their neck of the woods.