by Gayla Twist
“What are you doing?” Fred asked, also sitting up and squinting at the roof, trying to figure out what had upset me.
“How do you open the sunroof?” I demanded, scrabbling at it. “Would you open it, please? Open it right now!”
Fred must have taken the urgency that throbbed in my voice seriously because instead of saying something stupid like, “What’s your deal?” like a lot of guys would, he leaned forward to press the button that opened the sunroof. “There,” he said as it slid open.
I stood up, thrusting my head out of the car, scanning the sky. The night breeze had a bite to it, and the leaves were quickly falling from the trees but, besides that, nothing. The sky was empty. There was only the dark of night. Had my eyes been playing tricks on me? Did I so desperately want to see Jessie again that my brain had decided to accommodate me?
“What are you doing?” Fred asked, his voice sounding muffled from his seated position in the car.
I wasn’t sure what to tell him. The truth was the most obvious thing and also the answer that sounded the least likely. “I thought I saw a vampire,” I said, retracting myself back into the vehicle.
That earned me a chuckle. “Seriously?”
“No.” I forced myself to laugh a little, too. “I was just feeling kind of claustrophobic and needed some air.”
“Oh,” Fred said glumly. “Was it because of what I said? You know, about how I feel.”
“No,” I assured him, but I’m not sure he believed me. “And about what you said—I’m sorry I reacted the way I did. I like you and all, but I guess I’m not ready to start using the L word or anything like that.”
Fred snorted a little, and I could tell he was annoyed. “You don’t seem to be ready for a lot of things,” he said, crossing his arms.
“I guess not,” was all I could think to say.
We sat there for several moments, me looking at him, Fred glaring out the window. “Are you ready to go home?” he eventually asked. I wasn’t sure if he was trying to make a joke or not.
“Yeah,” I nodded. “I’m ready to go home.” In fact, I was champing at the bit to go home, but I couldn’t tell him that.
We climbed into the front seats, and Fred started up the car. What had begun as a fun, casual date had turned into a bit of a disaster, and I felt horrible. I didn’t want to use Fred. And if I hadn’t been so wound up about Jessie, I probably would have really liked him. But I was still mired in heartbreak, so there was nothing I could do.
When Fred pulled up to my house, he didn’t even put the car in park. He just applied his foot to the break and said, “Good night, Aurora,” without even looking in my direction. I took the hint and quickly got out of the car.
“How was your date, honey?” Mom asked as I walked into the living room. She was curled up on the couch, simultaneously cruising the Internet on her laptop and watching TV.
“Not the best,” I admitted. “I’m not sure if we’re going to go out anymore.”
That comment made my mom look up from her typing. “Is anything wrong?” she asked. “Is he being a jerk or something?”
“No,” I assured her. “I think it’s more me being the jerk.”
She shook her head, giving me a confused look.
“I just don’t think I like him as much as he likes me,” I told her. “It makes me feel kind of bad.”
“Oh, I get it.” She appeared mildly relieved. “Well, you can’t force yourself to like someone. Even if he is pretty cute.” Mom had been very complimentary of Fred’s appearance when he picked me up for the movies on our first date. “Just try to be honest while still being considerate. That’s the best you can do.”
I headed upstairs as quickly as I could without arousing suspicion. Once I was inside my room with the door closed, I opened my window that led onto the porch roof and looked out. The wind was picking up, and I shivered when a blast of night air hit me, piercing my clothes. But no one was there.
I don’t know what I was expecting. That Jessie would drift out of the sky to perch on the roof like he had done for a few blissful weeks just as school began? I was about to close the window when I heard something. It was very quiet, not even a rustle. It sounded more like someone exhaling. That was the closest I could get to describing it.
My heart started hammering wildly in my chest. Was it him? Was it Jessie, somewhere in the shadows?
I leaned as far as I could out of the window. “Hello?” I called in a quiet voice.
I froze there for a moment, undecided if I should go out on the roof to triple check he wasn’t out there or shut the window and spend the next several hours staring at the ceiling in a vain attempt to sleep.
Just as I was deciding that my ears were playing tricks on me along with my eyes, I heard a faint voice replying, “Hello.” But it wasn’t the warm honey tones of Jessie Vanderlind’s voice. It sounded female.
“Hello?” I said again, scanning the night, trying to locate the source of the voice.
“Are you Aurora Keys?” the voice asked, as if it was the most natural thing in the world to be having a conversation out a bedroom window in the middle of the night.
The word yes was forming on my lips, but a sudden wave of fear stopped me. There was no reason to tell a random voice in the night who I was. “No,” I said, slowly moving back so I was no longer leaning out the window. “I don’t know who that is.”
“Are you sure?” the voice asked. Whoever she was, she had a bit of an accent that I couldn’t place. It sounded European to my inexperienced ears.
“Um, yeah. I’m pretty sure.”
“May I come into your house and use your telephone?” the voice asked. “I’ve had trouble with my car, and I need to call a friend. He’s waiting to hear from me about dinner.” The voice sounded amused, like she had said something that was a delightful inside joke and she wished someone she knew was around to appreciate it.
My blood ran cold. Jessie had explained to me that the legend about a vampire having to be invited into a home was true. “No,” I said, reaching up to grab the window. “There’s a gas station a few blocks from here. They have a pay phone.” I started sliding the window shut.
“But I’ve hurt my leg,” the voice insisted. “I do not think I could walk that far. Won’t you please help me?”
“I could call an ambulance,” I told her. “Or the police. Would that help?”
“No, no,” the voice said hurriedly. “I just want to come inside and use your phone. It’s cold out here, and I will have to wait for a tow truck. Won’t you invite me into your home?”
“No,” I said slowly. “I think you’re better off waiting in your car.”
“Aurora.” My mom tapped at my door. She opened it and poked her head into my room. “I’m going to bed now, honey. Good night.”
“Good night, Mom,” I said, practically choking on the words.
As soon as my mom had closed the door again, I whipped my head back around and there, on the other side of the glass of my bedroom window, stood a vampire.
Chapter 4
I knew screaming was a bad idea; that would only bring back my mother, and we would both probably die. But I felt a scream burbling in my throat. It was not the beautiful boy vampire that I had been dreaming of every night for the last month but a lady vampire gazing in at me with eyes like two embers—black on the surface with fire underneath. She must have been turned when she was somewhere in her early thirties, as far as I could guess. She had a head full of corkscrew curls that were fire engine red, and a large, burgundy cloak hung about her shoulders, the wind making it flap slightly.
“I thought you said you’d never heard of the name Aurora Keys,” she hissed.
My first impulse was to say “I haven’t” and pretend like I didn’t know what she was talking about, but I knew I had to be very cautious in my decisions when there was a vampire standing on the roof. Quickly, I decided on, “If you were me, would you have said yes?”
The corners of th
e vampire’s red lips twitched up slightly in a small smirk. “You have a point,” she conceded.
“Is there a reason you’re on my roof in the middle of the night?” I asked in a slightly annoyed voice, trying to maintain the upper hand.
The vampiress looked me over from head to toe. “You’re the little piece of ass that Jessie Vanderlind found so enticing?” Her voice was filled with incredulity.
I wasn’t sure how she expected me to respond to that. “I guess.”
She shook her head. “Poor Jessie. He has problems.”
I reached up and tried to close the window all the way, but quick as a flash, the vampiress jammed the toe of her boot between the window and the sill.
“Listen to me, little human,” she hissed, leaning toward the glass. “You are going to open this window and invite me in.”
“Take your boot out of the way,” I said in response. “This is my home, and you are not welcome.”
I must have said the right thing—or maybe the wrong thing—because her eyes began to burn even more intensely than when she’d first appeared. “Just because you know a thing or two, don’t think you’re actually clever,” she snarled, yanking her foot from the sill.
I quickly slammed the window shut. “Thank you,” I said, not meaning to be snotty. It was more of a kneejerk response. She just stood there glowering at me. I had the feeling that if I simply closed my curtains, that wouldn’t discourage her. She would stand there all night. “Is there any particular reason you’re here?” I asked. “I don’t see Jessie anymore, if that’s your problem.” I was trying to sound brave, to be brave, to fight back the panic building in my belly.
“My problem,” the vampiress replied, “is that one of my brothers is dead because of you.” When I continued to give her a blank stare, she added, “Adami. Count Adami.”
“Adami?”
“Oh, come on,” she snapped. “How many vampires have you killed? Viktor. Viktor Adami!”
“Viktor was your brother?” I immediately felt bad. Viktor was a psycho, but it was sad to lose a relative.
“No,” she said. “Not in blood, but he was a brother vampire.”
I thought things over a little more. “Viktor was a count?” I couldn’t help but wonder. He did not come across as a count.
My comment caught the vampiress up for a moment. “It was more of an honorary title,” she mumbled, which made me think it wasn’t an actual title.
“Well, I’m sorry your friend is dead,” I told her. “But his death was not my fault.”
“I never said Viktor was my friend,” the vampiress said all too quickly and sounding a bit defensive.
“Oookay...” I gave her a confused look. “Um... I guess I don’t understand what you’re doing here.” My numerous questions and refusal to appear scared were buying me time, if nothing else, while I tried to figure out what to do about there being a bloodthirsty vampire on my porch roof.
She drew herself up, trying to maintain some composure. “I am here to avenge the death of a brother vampire,” she informed me.
“But you didn’t even like Viktor,” I said, making a wild guess. He didn’t seem like the kind of guy a lot of people liked to call friend.
“That is beside the point,” the vampiress said. “To die by the hands of a human is the worst kind of humiliation.”
“But his death was not my fault,” I repeated. “He caused his own death. I just happened to be there.”
“That doesn’t matter,” she insisted. “You are a human, and someone must pay.”
“That’s so unfair,” I insisted. My legs were trembling, but I had to be brave. I had to keep talking. She was, after all, planning to kill me. “This is like in the movies when some nerd wants revenge on some jock, so he does something to humiliate the jock’s girlfriend.”
“No, it’s not,” she insisted. “It’s not like that at all.”
“Yes, it is,” I fired right back at her. “It’s the exact same thing. And quite honestly, I’m surprised that you would do such a thing.” I didn’t know her from Eve, but shouldn’t there be some loyalty of sisterhood between females?
The vampiress frowned, furrowing her brow. “So, you think I should go after Jessie Vanderlind instead?”
“No,” I cried. “Of course not.” I was trying to save myself, but I didn’t want to turn her bloodlust on him. “The only person responsible for Viktor’s death was Viktor. I know that’s not easy to hear, but it’s true.”
“That can’t be right,” she muttered, mostly to herself.
“It’s true,” I insisted. “He’s the one that insulted Jessie. He’s the one that came back to insult Jessie again, even after Jessie had made his position perfectly clear. And then, when Jessie had to physically throw Viktor out of his house, the creep decided to come after me as a way to get revenge on Jessie. I mean, what is up with vampires? You seem to have a lot of problems with anger transference.” My mom was a therapist, after all. I had picked up some of the lingo.
“You’re right,” the vampiress sighed. “And to be honest with you, Viktor was always kind of a schmuck.” She gave a small shrug. “I don’t even think he was a real count.”
I began to breathe a little easier. “Okay, well, it was nice talking to you,” I told her. “And I know it’s still early for you, but it’s getting pretty late for me, so I’m going to get going to bed.”
“I don’t think so,” the vampiress said. Her eyes began to burn more intensely again. “You are a human, after all. You were part of Viktor’s death, even if you claim you didn’t cause it.” Then she added, “And besides, I could use a bite.”
With the vampire’s eyes blazing away, I discovered it was very hard not to look at her. I tried to turn my head but found it challenging to do so. I felt like she was compelling me to look at her. It felt, in a way, like peer pressure. I felt like my entire high school was laughing at me, judging me, urging me to jump off a very high cliff that I desperately did not want to jump off of.
“Now,” the vampiress said, a smile playing across her lips. “Open the window and invite me in.”
I felt myself bending, my body twisting against my will to obey her command. My brain fought against it. I felt like there was a voice screaming in my head, “Don’t do it!” while my body trembled with the urge to obey.
“No,” I managed to croak out, in a voice just above a whisper, while bracing myself against the window sill. “You are not welcome here. You can’t come in.”
A shocked expression spread across her face, and I felt the souped-up peer pressure release a little. “Open the window,” she ordered. “Invite me in.”
“No,” I said again, feeling a little bit stronger every moment.
“Obey me!” she bellowed, punching the window and causing the glass to crack.
“No!” I said right back, straightening up and glaring at her. “You’re not welcome here, and you can’t come in.”
Fury was written across her face. “I will make you obey me.”
Behind the vampiress, a quiet male voice said, “No, you won’t.”
Chapter 5
“Jessie,” I cried, having to restrain myself from tearing open the window and flinging myself into his arms.
“Vanderlind,” the vampiress snarled.
Jessie was as beautiful as I remembered—his dark wavy hair ruffled, his skin as pale and perfect as alabaster, his eyes as gray as the Atlantic during a storm. The tails of his long, dark coat settled around his calves. I didn’t see him appear on the roof, but I knew he had probably flown very quickly to get there.
“Have you two been formally introduced?” he asked. “Miss Aurora Keys, this is Miss Ilona Firenze. Ilona’s family is one of the oldest vampire lines,” he told me. Turning to the vampiress, he said, “Aurora and her family are humans and happen to be under my protection.”
Ilona’s lips turned down into a tight sneer. “I didn’t know she was under your protection.”
“Yes, I understan
d that,” Jessie said, his voice painfully polite. “But now you know. Please spread the word.”
The vampiress sniffed. “I do not understand why you treat your food better than a brother vampire.”
“Aurora is a human, not food,” he said in a stern voice.
“Have it your way.” Ilona gave a small shrug. Then without another word, she turned and, within the blink of an eye, disappeared into the night.
“Jessie,” I gasped, pressing the palms of my hands against the glass of the window. He mirrored me, and we stood there, palm to palm, just looking at each other through the spider web of cracks that Ilona had created with her fist.
“I’m so sorry, Aurora,” he said, his beautiful gray eyes glued to my face.
“It’s not your fault,” I said automatically.
“Yes, it is,” he insisted. “We need to talk.”
Those four words started ricocheting around in my brain. That phrase alone let me know that Jessie had bad news to share, but it was compounded by the grave look on his gorgeous face. The conflict with Ilona and having the boy that I loved so close after so long started to catch up with me. My legs began to shake again, and I could feel water filling my eyes.
Jessie instantly understood that I was upset, and his expression turned to that of compassion. “Oh, my darling,” he whispered, pressing his forehead to the glass. “Don’t cry. Please just open the window.”
His words were all it took for the tears to start cascading down my cheeks. I wrenched open the window, furiously wiping at my face. “You can come in, if you want,” I told him.
For a split second, Jessie moved forward to cross over the threshold into my home, but then his face tightened, and he pulled back. “You mustn’t say that,” he said through clenched lips. “You have to take it back. You have to rescind your invitation.”
“But I don’t want to,” I said. “I just... I just want you to hold me.”