Vampires, Hearts & Other Dead Things

by Margie Fuston

  He makes a harsh, angry sound in the back of his throat. “Being lied to?”

  “No. The alligators. I would have taken you even without the task.” I reach for his forearm, but he backs away from me.

  “But you didn’t.”

  “I’m sorry.” I shake my head. “I told you I’d do anything to save my dad.”

  “No—I know that. I’m okay with that or I wouldn’t still be here, but you could’ve told me it was a challenge, and we still could’ve had a good time. Why did you lie though? What was the point?”

  I hesitate, biting my top lip to prevent the truth from breaking out: I wanted to make him happy. When I saw the challenge, I thought of how much Henry would love it. I didn’t see it as one more roadblock to overcome in saving Dad. I saw it as a way to make Henry smile. But I can’t tell him that—I can’t open that door.

  I take the easy way out. “Would you have enjoyed it as much if you knew Nicholas was behind it?”

  He shrugs, searching my face like he knows there’s more to it, but I turn myself into an empty canvas and give him nothing.

  “Stop making this about you.” My words are cruel, and I deliver them with simple coldness. Perhaps these tasks are also training me to be as vicious as a vampire.

  The muscle below his eyes twitches and then he turns away. I let him go. He can’t expect me to choose him in this. He keeps seeing this as him versus Nicholas, but Nicholas is nothing but a means to save my father, and when it comes to a choice between hurting Henry’s feelings and saving my father, I’ll rip apart Henry’s feelings with all the ruthlessness of an alligator, and I won’t be made to feel regret.

  Well, maybe a little. I collect it in my well of watercolor—it’s the burning orange of the sun right before it sets.

  I am all in a sea of wonders. I doubt; I fear; I think strange

  things, which I dare not confess to my own soul.

  —Dracula by Bram Stoker

  Fifteen

  I don’t look for Henry, and he doesn’t come back to our place. As I walk to the bookstore later that night, I can’t help but notice what a lonely place New Orleans could be. Barely anyone walks the streets by themselves here, and even if you are alone, it’s so easy to turn and interact with someone beside you. I can’t bring myself to do that, though. There’s too much pain inside me to open my mouth and enjoy meaningless conversation. My well won’t allow it. Keeping it contained consumes all my thoughts. I count the cracks in the pavement to distract myself but give up after a hundred, because I’m walking too dang slow and the bookstore will close before I get there.

  “You look sad.”

  He doesn’t make me jump this time, but my heart still lurches at his voice. I turn and find Carter standing under an ornate gas lantern, shadows playing across his face. I bet he planned that position. He looks extra creepy.

  “Are you going to report me?”

  He shrugs.

  “What are you doing?” I ask.

  “Watching.”

  I sigh. “What do you want?”

  “Nothing. Everything. Hard to tell after a while.” He looks thoughtful, like he’s lost in the past or maybe the future. Maybe it all blends together.

  I wonder if I can get something out of him while he’s like this. “How long have you and Nicholas known each other? Have you always done his watching?”

  His eyes snap back to me, narrowing suddenly in a way that makes my skin crawl.

  “Don’t all packs of predators have leaders and minions? I do the dirty work.” He brings a hand up to his face and inspects his nails like there’s something staining them. I can’t tell in the dark if there is or isn’t, and not knowing is worse.

  “We all have our roles,” he says. “You should probably continue with yours.” He gestures down the street, and I don’t wait around this time. I’m not going to ask him again to turn me. If there are bad vampires and good ones, I know which one I’d put in each category.

  I glance over my shoulder once as I move away, but he’s already gone.

  * * *

  “Hey, Ruth,” I call out when I finally slide through the door of the bookshop, mentally preparing myself to explain why Henry’s not with me again.

  “Expecting someone else?” Nicholas lounges in Ruth’s chair, two of the legs off the floor, his heavy black shoes draped across her desk, keeping him balanced.

  “Something tells me Ruth would not like your feet on her desk.”

  “Are you going to tell on me?”

  I don’t answer, keeping a little piece of power over him.

  He smirks at my silence and drops his legs off the desk, leaning forward to check the empty doorway behind me.

  “Where’s your man?”

  For a second I freeze, thinking he means Carter, but no. I can tell by the tightness in his expression that he means Henry.

  “He’s not my man.” I shut the door.

  “Ah, excellent.” His lips curve in a feral way that makes my stomach drop. I struggle to capture it and drag it back up to sensibility.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I like to run the bookstore in my spare time. Immortality gets boring without a purpose.”

  I sigh.

  “I was waiting for you, of course.”

  “Got tired of the book? Just going to give me the answer?”

  “Not quite.” He jerks his head toward the poetry section.

  “So I still have to play this game with you sitting right there.”

  “Someone’s cranky tonight.”

  I don’t answer. I’m supposed to be full of joy, after all, and whatever’s about to come out of my mouth is more like joy that died and came back as a zombie.

  I pull the book off the shelf with a little too much gusto, and Nicholas chuckles behind me, because of course he followed me. He’s here to see all of his little game in action.

  I read the poem first.

  The Ghost

  Softly as brown-eyed Angels rove

  I will return to thy alcove,

  And glide upon the night to thee,

  Treading the shadows silently.

  And I will give to thee, my own,

  Kisses as icy as the moon,

  And the caresses of a snake

  Cold gliding in the thorny brake.

  And when returns the livid morn

  Thou shalt find all my place forlorn

  And chilly, till the falling night.

  Others would rule by tenderness

  Over thy life and youthfulness,

  But I would conquer thee by fright!

  —Charles Baudelaire

  “Ahh, one of my favorites,” he says, so close behind me I jump, and he laughs softly in response.

  I turn around and glare up at him. “Are you trying to scare me? Threatening to conquer someone isn’t exactly romantic.”

  “Are you scared, Victoria?”

  I let a little trickle of fear release within me—a deep, pulsing purple. We’re alone in a bookstore after-hours on a side street few people would consider walking down this time of night. But fear is perhaps the easiest emotion to control when you absolutely have to. I push it back down.

  “Nope. I’m pretty relieved, actually. I wasn’t sure you’d give me another clue. My alligator picture was less than perfect.”

  “It’s the spirit that counts.”

  “Great. I’ve got spirit coming out my ears.”

  “You are too funny.”

  “I aim to please.”

  “That’s precisely what I’m afraid of.” His voice grows suddenly serious.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I fear you may be showing me what I want to see and telling me what I want to hear without really feeling it in here.” He taps me on the chest right below my neck.

  “My collarbone?”

  “See—humor as a shield again.”

  “I’m just a funny girl.”

  “Prove me wrong.” He points to the still-folde
d note in my hand. I open it.

  Lasso Joanie on the Pony.

  “What does that even mean?”

  “You’ll see. That’s what I’m here for.” He stands with his arms clasped behind his back, waiting for me to commit, but I’m already way past committed.

  “Lead the way.”

  * * *

  We end up on the streetcar line, and I make Nicholas take the window seat so I can escape the branches trying to kill me. When we pass the house Henry and I robbed, I can’t help but squirm.

  “Uncomfortable?” he asks.

  “You returned that stuff, right?”

  “Of course. What do you think I am—a monster?” His teeth flash.

  “You’d better be.”

  He chuckles.

  We exit our ride in front of a massive brick church, almost a silhouette against the purpling night sky. I’m afraid for a second that we might be about to steal some holy water, but Nicholas passes the church without even glancing at it, and I worry he can’t stand the sight of it.

  I stop in front of it though. I’m tempted to test him—invent a reason to go inside—but if vampires can’t enter churches, then ignorance will be my best defense against how pissed Dad will be. I don’t know for sure what Dad wants, whether or not he was serious when he told me to find him a vampire, but if I make him a creature that can’t stand the sight of something so important to him, he could spend eternity resenting me.

  Would that be worse? I almost call out to Nicholas—ask him directly.

  But it’s not like I’m going to turn Dad without his permission, and he’ll want to know everything I know. If I don’t know anything for certain, then I have a better chance of him agreeing.

  Because what happens if I do all this and he says no? If he’d rather die and leave me than be a vampire, how could I live with that? Spend an eternity alone with that haunting me?

  “Beautiful, isn’t it?”

  I didn’t hear him slide up next to me, but he’s there, staring up at the church with something like reverence on his face.

  “I’d take you inside, but they’re closed for the night already.”

  So much relief courses through me, I barely stop myself from crying.

  “You were worried about that,” he says softly.

  “Yes,” I whisper, and that one word is more honest than I’ve been with him yet.

  “Those are myths,” he says, and then he grabs my hand. “Come.”

  He leads me onto Tulane University’s campus, past a massive stone building worthy of castle status. Lampposts with perfectly round globes on top light everything, so if you squint your eyes, they seem like floating moons.

  “It’s gorgeous,” I whisper. I could spend hours here, drawing until I captured this nighttime whimsy. I’m glancing behind me at the largest building when Nicholas pulls me to a stop.

  “Look up,” he says, so I do.

  I can’t help myself. I gasp like a child seeing snow for the first time. Thousands of beads dangle from the branches above me like multicolored vines. A single lamppost sits just beneath the tree, lighting the beads around it with an iridescent glow. I stepped into a fairytale, and it causes a sharp pang in my chest because I’m past the point of believing in fairytales, but for one second when I looked up, I believed again. Maybe I can hang onto that.

  “There,” Nicholas says. “That was what I was looking for—that look on your face that said anything in the world is possible if you believe.” He reaches out and runs a hand down my cheek. “Where did it go?”

  “It grew up and flew away like everything else.” I point up at the tree. “It went to live in fairyland with all the other beautiful things.”

  “Well, maybe I can get it back for you.” He steps away with a grin, then crouches and leaps straight up at the tree, snagging a set of pink beads from one of the branches. Coming back to me, he places it around my neck. I can’t help but smile a little. He cocks his head and scrutinizes my expression. “You need more.”

  He continues to jog around the tree and jump for the necklaces, capturing those little pieces of magic and dragging them down to earth to be trapped with me. I stare down at all the colors combined against my shirt, and somehow they don’t weigh me down like I thought they would. I actually laugh, and they dance with the movement of my chest.

  “I don’t have to flash you for these, do I?”

  He raises a brow. “Well, I wouldn’t say no if you’re offering.”

  I laugh again, loud and startling and so right in this little land of dreams. I don’t want to go when he takes my hand and starts leading me out, but he promises the night won’t be over, and I don’t want it to be. With the weight of the beads on my neck, I let some of my own weight go. On the tram ride back downtown, the breeze through the window threatens to blow me away.

  I sense Nicholas watching me, and I know he’s seeing what he wants, and it frees me from the guilt of feeling momentarily happy, because happiness is a necessary evil. Besides, I’m not really happy. I am still wearing a mask, but one more closely melded to my own skin.

  I let myself sink into that false happiness, a bright, unnatural yellow.

  We end up walking toward the French Market, past Café Du Monde, to the point where the road splits, leaving an awkward triangular island surrounded by the street.

  Nicholas points to the golden statue of a woman on a horse. “That’s Joan of Arc. We call her Joanie on the Pony.”

  I gape. “And you want me to lasso her? With what?”

  A devilish grin spreads on his face as he tugs on the beads around my neck, running his fingers over the strands. “I’d say you have about thirty chances.”

  We cross the street and stand below her. The lights in the dark give her a molten, fluid look, as if she captured the fire that burned her and used it to forge herself into a god. The banner she holds above her head almost waves in the glow.

  “Is this really necessary?” I’m not keen on vandalism. Although it looks like she already wears a couple of necklaces left over from Mardi Gras.

  “She’s a symbol of perseverance and determination. She deserves to have a little piece of you with her.”

  “She was burned at the stake.”

  He shrugs, looking up at her with grim respect. “Sometimes it’s not about how someone ends.”

  His words tighten around my throat, and I remove one of my suddenly heavy necklaces to ease some of the tension.

  I pull my arm back and toss it. It clinks against her nose so loudly I wince. I select an orange necklace next. It hits the flagpole and sinks to the ground.

  “I can tell you never played sports as a kid,” Nicholas says.

  “Shut up.”

  I eye my stack of necklaces. I need one that suits. A color that feels like hope. I choose a spring green even though the beads are weather-worn. That doesn’t matter. Hope gets worn out too.

  “Hey.” I jump. A cop car has pulled up along the other side of the street. The woman leans out of her window. “What are you kids doing?”

  Nicholas turns slowly to me. “Last try. Make it count.”

  I wind back as a car door slams, focus on Joanie’s golden head, and let it soar. The beads crown her head for a second and then slip down and rest against her chest.

  “Yes!” I jump and pump my fist in the air. My beads jingle.

  “We must go now,” Nicholas says, grabbing my fisted hand in his long fingers and dragging me after him. We run down the street and through the closed French Market, past stalls draped with tarps, waiting for the next day. Once we get through the other side, Nicholas slows and glances behind us. “I don’t think she came after us.”

  “Did you see that?” I wheeze. I’m not a fantastic runner. My heart beats too fast and my lungs flounder. But there’s a thrill in pushing your body to the edge. It gets rid of everything but the physical, burying it beneath the need to keep breathing.

  Nicholas is silent. When I catch enough breath to stand upright, he
’s watching the labored rise and fall of my chest. I try to hold my breath to stop it, but I end up breathing more deeply. Taking a step toward me on our abandoned street corner, he wipes a sweaty piece of hair off my cheek.

  “You are beautiful,” he says.

  And even with my clothes sticky with sweat, I soak in his words and believe them.

  His fingertips trail down my warm cheeks to my neck and then lace into the beads dangling there. He tugs them ever so gently toward him, and I follow, getting closer and closer to his chest, which is suspiciously still, given we just sprinted half a mile.

  I tilt my head up, and his mouth slides into a smile.

  “What do you want from me right now?”

  I part my lips to tell him the same thing I’ve been saying all along. I want him to give me the secret to his immortality. I want to be like him. But the words won’t come. I can’t find them. His breath warms my face, and my head’s a fog with no colors, only weightlessness, and I want to keep it that way.

  “I want to kiss you,” I say.

  He pulls the beads until I’m pressed against him. He lowers his mouth, and I rise onto my toes to connect with him. His lips move slow and soft against mine, gently lulling me. His grip shifts on the beads, tightening, pulling me impossibly closer so I’m aware of how violently my heart beats against his ribcage. I lock my fingers around his neck and pull him closer, biting his lower lip as I do. His hands around my necklaces clench, momentarily squeezing my windpipe so I gasp and break contact.

  He drops the beads, and they clink between our chests. Placing his thumbs along my neck, he traces both sides of my windpipe as I stare up into his eyes, almost black in the darkened shadows of the night. His thumbs travel the bottom of my jaw, tilting it up as he bends and places a kiss in the hollow of my throat, lips moving upward as my pulse skitters under his touch, but I don’t pull away. Teeth scrape cautiously across the tender part of my neck until his lips rest against the throbbing pulse beneath the corner of my jaw. He lingers. My fingers tighten in his hair, and he draws in a sharp breath as I pull him closer. Closer. He breaks his trance, and his lips travel back down my jaw. The thrill drowns out everything, and when he reaches my mouth again, I dive into him, swimming through his emotions and making them mine.