Bride of the Vampire

by Gayla Twist

  “I know, but… Those were extenuating circumstances,” he said, taking a few steps away from me as if he was worried I would lunge for him.

  “But we had those extenuating circumstances,” I pointed out. I was, after all, no longer a virgin, even if it had just been that one time. “And we love each other. And now there are even more extenuating circumstances, so…” I stood up.

  Jessie danced back a few more steps. “Aurora, I think we should be focusing on dealing with your great grandmother.”

  I gave him a flirty smile and slinked forward a couple of steps. I didn’t know what had come over me. I’d always wanted Jessie; even before we’d ever met. But somehow my hormones were suddenly raging out of control; I felt like I could literally tear the clothes right off of him.

  “I understand what you’re feeling,” Jessie said, raising his other hand and backing toward the door. “Vampire emotions can be surprisingly strong.”

  “So let’s give in to them,” I said, stalking after him like a cat pursues a mouse. “With what we have to face in just the next few days, we deserve a little pleasure.” A small part of my brain cringed from the embarrassing words that were coming out of my mouth, but the rest of me didn’t care. I wanted Jessie. He was my soul mate. We were destined to be together. And the sooner he submitted to my desires, then the sooner we could do it again.

  “Aurora,” Jessie said, backing up so quickly that he bumped into the closed door. “I don’t want you to think I don’t want you, because I do. I desperately do. But…” He cleared his throat and pulled himself up to his full height while fumbling for the doorknob. “I think we should wait until we are properly married.”

  Chapter 7

  After I’d slugged down half a liter of blood, I felt much better. I felt more under control. Plus a little embarrassed for how lustfully I had behaved. I thought teenage hormones were intense, but they were nothing compared to the hormones of a fledgling vampire.

  Fortunately for me, I had the most understanding boyfriend living or undead. About twenty minutes later he knocked on my door. “Come in,” I called from the loveseat that was on the opposite end of the room from the bed.

  He poked his head in. “Is it safe?”

  I covered my face with my hands, scarlet with embarrassment. “I’m sorry,” I told him.

  He crossed the room and sat next to me, taking my hands. “Don’t be.” Jessie leaned in and gave me a quick kiss on the lips. “It’s nice to know that you feel that way about me. And I feel that way about you, too. But…”

  “What?” I asked.

  “But I’m from a time when people waited before they…” He waved a hand vaguely in the direction of the bed. “And I know in modern times, in this country at least, that is not the custom, but... “He ran his fingers through his wavy black hair several times rather vigorously. “I know that you are dealing with a lot of new emotions since you’ve been turned and…” He turned his head, unable to look at me. “I wouldn’t like to take advantage of your current situation.”

  I had to suppress a small laugh. Not a malicious one, but Jessie’s old fashion sensibilities were just so charming. He was such a gentleman. I tried to imagine any boy in my high school being noble enough to resist a girl throwing herself at him and it was a large stretch of the imagination. There was Fred, of course. He had proven himself to be a truly brave and noble person when the chips were down. Thinking of him made me feel sad again. I would never see him again and he had been so strong when the senior Mr. Vanderlind had us all trapped. It hurt to think I would never see him again. At one point I had planned to do my best to fix him up with Blossom, but I doubted there was any way I could make that happen as a member of the undead.

  “Are you alright?” Jessie asked, touching my cheek.

  I nodded. “I’m fine,” I assured him. “It’s just… I love that we can be together, but I already really miss the people I have to leave behind.”

  “Grandma Gibson?”

  I nodded again. She wasn’t who I was thinking of, but she just as well could have been. “I need to go see her,” I said.

  “Would you like to go now?” Jessie asked. My eyes instinctively turned to the small refrigerator in the room that was stocked with blood. “After you’ve had a little more to eat, of course,” he added.

  “I’m not sure I could get there on my own,” I told him.

  Jessie gave me a dazzling smile. “I would be happy to be your escort,” he assured me.

  “Thank you, but…” I pinched my lips together. Grandma Gibson was going to be upset enough as it was, once I revealed what I had become. I didn’t think having the boy she would feel was responsible for my transformation lurking in the corner would help matters any.

  “I meant I would wait outside,” he said.

  I felt a wave of love for Jessie wash over me. “Why are you so good to me?” I asked.

  I meant it half teasingly, but Jessie looked quite serious. “Because you came back to me,” he said. “I was broken and you made me whole again. You are the love of my life.” And then he kissed me. It was a gentle kiss; not one of passion, but one to convey how much he cherished being with me. And I felt the exact way about him.

  “We’d better get going,” he said, rising to his feet and then pulling me up after him. I couldn’t tell if he was worried that Grandma Gibson would be in bed or if he thought I might attack him again. “You drink up while I tell Mother what we’re doing. She’s been so upset lately, I don’t want to cause her any undue worry.”

  “Okay,” I said, crossing the room to the fridge. I was so glad that the Vanderlinds had a ready supply of blood. It was a straightforward ownership of multiple blood banks. That kept most of the vampires in America and Europe fed, plus helped out numerous hospitals along the way. I hated the idea of having to feed off of an actual living, breathing human being. I knew the terror it brought. Jessie’s brother had drained me, after all. He had ended my life. Plus I knew the anguish that was so crushing to a family when a member disappeared. My grandmother had suffered most of her life, wondering what had happened to her sister, Colette. And now I knew the truth. I had the ability to share every detail of the horrible night when her sister died. I wondered if knowing would bring Grandma Gibson peace or more sorrow.

  I was very grateful Jessie was willing to accompany me to visit my great grandmother in the nursing home for numerous reasons, not the least of which was that I kept careening into tree branches and chimneys. Twice he literally had to snatch me out of clutches of some high power lines. Eventually he just held onto the collar of my coat and guided me that way. It was embarrassing and I became a little whiny about it.

  “Can’t you just hold me in your arms like when I was a mortal?” I asked.

  “There’s nothing I like better than having my arms around you,” Jessie informed me, “but you’ll never properly learn to fly if I keep doing all the work.”

  He was right and I knew it, but that didn’t stop me from sulking a little. I thought being able to fly would be this amazing thing. And it was amazing. But also awkward and embarrassing and a little scary. I knew I was immortal, but I’d spent my first seventeen years trying to avoid falling off of cliffs or tumble out of windows. It was hard to break the habit.

  “Visiting hours have ended a couple hours ago,” a man behind the front desk of the Ashtabula Home for Elder Care informed us as we entered the building. I knew that they would be, but I also knew my great grandmother would probably still be awake.

  “I need to see Lillian Gibson,” I told him, fixing him with my eyes. Jessie and I had agreed that I would practice using my influence over any of the care facility staff. He would only step in if things weren’t going well.

  The man smiled at me and gave a shrug. “Visiting hours end at six. You’ll have to come back tomorrow.”

  I had to assume he was just smiling because he was a pleasant person. Or maybe because I was better looking as a vampire than I had been as a mortal. Either
way, he didn’t seem all that committed to submitting to my request.

  I tried fixing him intensely with my eyes and said, “I need to see Lillian Gibson.”

  “Is it an emergency?” he asked, frowning slightly with concern. “I can call up for special permission from my manager if I have to.” He moved his hand idly toward the phone on the desk.

  “There’s no reason to call anyone.” Jessie said, fixing the man with his fathomless gray eyes. “This young woman is simply going to visit with her great grandmother for a few minutes, but it’s no concern of yours. In fact, you didn’t even notice her come in. You’ve been taking care of the front desk as you should and haven’t noticed anything out of the ordinary at all.”

  “That’s right.” The man nodded, his eyes glued to Jessie’s. “It’s been a quiet night, but they usually are around here. Unless somebody dies.” He said this laugh part with a bit of a nervous laugh.

  “You can go back to your work now,” Jessie told him.

  The man nodded and then looked down at the video screens in front of him that showed the various hallways and exits in the building.

  Jessie turned to me. “Let’s go. Or would you rather I wait here?” He gestured toward the seats in the waiting room to the left of the front desk.

  I was feeling like a ridiculous failure, as far as being a member of the undead. I was no good at flying and I apparently had no natural talent for influencing mortals. “You’d better come with me and wait in the hall, if you don’t mind,” I told him. I didn’t need some orderly to discover me and raise a fuss.

  We started walking and then I stopped suddenly. “How did we get in here?” I asked, turning to look at Jessie.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean people live here, but we just walked right in the front door. I thought that was impossible. We weren’t invited in. And, I mean, didn’t we have to be?”

  Jessie kissed my temple. “No one thinks of a nursing facility as their home.”

  That made me sad. It was such a depressing way to spend the finals years of a long life. My own mom had tried to keep Grandma Gibson with us for as long as possible, but eventually she became too much for us. I felt a flash of shame and wondered if there was anything else I could have done, but I couldn’t think of anything. She needed twenty-four hour care, but my mom had to work and I had to go to high school.

  “Come on,” Jessie said, squeezing my hand. “I think you’ll be happier once you get this over with.”

  I tapped on Grandma Gibson’s door and then poked my head inside. “Who’s that?” she said looking up from her chair in front of the card table. She had a deck of playing cards laid out before her. I’d always thought she was playing solitaire, but it turned out my great grandmother had turned into a bit of a medium in her elder years.

  “It’s me,” I said, entering the room. “Aurora.”

  A brilliant smiled broke across Grandma Gibson’s wrinkled face. “Aurora, my darling girl!” Then she looked concerned. “What are you doing here so late at night? Should you be out? Your mother told me you were ill.”

  “I’ll be alright,” I said, coming completely into the room.

  My great grandmother’s eyes widened for a moment; I saw a look of fear cross her wizened face, and then she burst into tears. “He got you,” she sobbed. “That Vanderlind boy got you at last.”

  “Oh, Gam-Gam, it’s not like that,” I said, hurrying across the room to her.

  But before I could wrap her in my arms, she reached into the knitting bag beside her chair and pulled out a wooden knitting needle. “Stay away from me, Aurora,” she said, brandishing the weapon. “I love you, but I will not be the first mortal to die by your hand.”

  “Oh, Gammy. It’s not like that,” I tried to tell her.

  “I saw this coming,” she informed me, still not lowering her impromptu stake. “I saw it in the cards.” She used her free hand to gesture toward the neat rows of cards laid out on the table. “I knew this would happen, but I didn’t want to believe it.” Her voice cracked and she broke down into tears. “I just didn’t want to believe it was true.”

  I didn’t know what to do. All I wanted was to hug her and tell her everything was going to be okay, but I understood why she was afraid of me. I was a vampire. I feasted off the blood of the living. Seating myself on the edge of her bed, I waited for her to calm down.

  Once she stopped sobbing, I told her, “I know what happened to Colette. I know what happened to your sister.”

  “I already know,” she said. “That vile creature killed her. Jessie Vanderlind. And now he’s turned my great granddaughter into a fiend.”

  “It’s not like that at all,” I said. “Not really.” Her moist eyes were gleaming, but she didn’t say anything else, so I continued with, “Would it hurt too much to know the truth? Would you rather just leave things as they are?”

  “No.” Grandma Gibson shook her head slightly. “I want to know the truth after all these years. Please tell me.” She set the knitting needle down on the table, but kept it within arm’s reach.

  And so I told her everything I knew about Lettie and how she had died. And then I tried to explain what had happened to me.

  “Was it me in the woods?” she asked, after I told her about the glowing woman who had told me that I had to hold on when the life was fading out of me.

  “I’m not sure. It’s hard to remember,” I told her. “I was dying and...”

  “Maybe it was Colette?” Grandma Gibson’s face took on a faraway look. “I do remember you calling to me, now that you’ve said it. I remember it like a dream. But I’m not sure I would have told you to try to live. At least not for the vampire.” She rubbed her lips together, back and forth a few times. “It must have been Colette. She must have wanted you to be with him.”

  I nodded, blinking back tears as Colette and my memories intertwined.

  Grandma Gibson gave a deep sigh, her body seemed to shrink down into itself. “I guess that’s what she wanted, then. More than anything else, she wanted to be with him. So much so that she… she came back from the grave to ask you to try.” Grandma Gibson started crying softly again and I felt miserable that I couldn’t go to her.

  “I’m so sorry,” I whispered.

  “Don’t be,” she said, giving a large sniff and then pulling a handkerchief out of her sleeve to blot at her nose. “To know a love like that is a gift. It’s something I could have had with Walter, if he’d lived.” I know she was referring to her old beau who had died fighting the Nazi’s in World War II. “And now you have it,” she said, looking up at me, her eyes glittering. “You have to love him enough for both you; you and Colette.”

  “I do,” I assured her. “I will.”

  “And the other one is dead?” she asked. “The brother? The one who really killed her?”

  “Yes.” I nodded vigorously.

  “Good,” Grandma Gibson said, her eyes fierce, but her chin trembling. “I’ll rest easier in my grave knowing that.”

  “Will you go to Denver with my mom?” I asked. “Will you go with Helen?”

  “Yes,” she said, firmly. “There’s no reason for me to stay here.”

  “Good.” I got to my feet. “I guess I’d better get going.” And then I wasn’t sure what to do next. “I’ll probably never see you again,” I managed to say, the words sticking in my throat.

  Gammy nodded. “I understand.”

  “Can I at least hug you before I go?” This time I couldn’t keep the sob out of my voice.

  “Yes, dear,” she said, firmly shoving the wooden knitting needle away from her. “I would like that.”

  As I wrapped my arms around her, I tried to memorize everything about the moment; the flora scent of her hair, her soft skin pressed against my cheek, her frail arms clutching me. “I love you, Grandma Gibson,” I told her.

  I love you, too, Colette,” she said, her voice watery. “Goodbye.”

  Jessie’s face looked very grave as I l
eft the room. “Is everything alright?” he asked.

  I couldn’t speak. There was no way I could make words come out of my mouth. I had to get outside and into the night air. I rushed out of the building with Jessie trailing behind me.

  It was only when I was about to careen into a satellite dish hanging off the side of someone’s house that he swooped in, snatching me up in his arms.

  “Oh Jessie,” I sobbed, burying my face in his chest. “That was just so… She was just…” And then my words were eclipsed by my crying.

  Chapter 8

  Jessie alighted on the roof of the castle and immediately sat down, his arms still wrapped around me. “It’ll be alright,” he said, nuzzling his face in my hair.

  “Jessie,” I said, my tears were starting to dry. “That was just so awful. And I’m going to miss her so much.”

  “I know,” he said in reply. “I’m sorry you have to go through this. I know you must have...” His lips formed a tight line as he thought about his words. “I know you must have a lot of regrets. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be,” I said, kissing his cheek. “I can’t regret being with you.” I kissed him again, this time softly on the lips. “You’re the love of my life.”

  “Aurora,” he whispered. “You’re my everything.”

  And then we were kissing; deep, passionate kissing. I coiled my body around him and he had his hands wrapped in my hair. “Oh, Jessie,” I gasped, this time with desire, pressing up against him. My physical need for him had reignited and I couldn’t believe how much I wanted to be with him intimately.

  “Aurora,” he said again.

  Pulling back a little, I looked deep into his gray eyes. “Let’s go to my room.”

  I felt him jerk forward a little, as if he wanted to race to my room without delay, but then he caught himself. “We can’t,” he told me. “I can’t.”

  “Why not?” I demanded, gripping him tighter against me. He wanted me. I wanted him. Plus, we were going to spend eternity together. I couldn’t see any reason to delay the inevitable. I didn’t want to delay it.