I had planned on coming here in my oldest, plainest clothes and without any make-up. Nobody should get the impression that I was trying to look desirable. I realized now that I had fooled myself again. And then Michael stood before me, arriving with preternatural speed from God knows where. His eyes widened as he appraised me with a look that I can only describe as a leer. “Look at you, you’re a stunner! Did you come because you missed me?”
I ignored his attempt at flirting. “No, all I wanted was to return these clothes you lent me.”
He pretended offense, but in reality, he seemed to find it all very amusing. “I would ask you inside, but this is a bit of a bad time.” He made as if to shut the door again, so I turned around to leave, adding: “You should have told me that you guys hexed my wounds somehow.”
Surprised and alarmed by my words, he stopped me and grabbed my arm. It didn’t hurt. “What do you mean, what happened?”
“I usually heal pretty quickly, but not even my bones can mend a broken forearm in less than six days. Just look at my face, there’s no more trace of the bruises, so naturally I thought that you–”
“Fascinating! Did you notice any other changes?” He looked utterly intrigued, but his words made me panic all over again. “Changes? What changes am I supposed to expect? I don’t want to change! What did you do to me?”
He heard a noise behind him, turned around to check on something, and said abruptly: “Gotta go.” Then he slammed the door in my face.
I stood there for several heartbeats, staring at the closed door without moving. Perplexed, I turned away and headed home. I snuck about, scurrying around street corners and gazing into each reflecting surface, checking whether I had already grown horns, wings, or a tail. When I got on the bus, a fellow student sat down next to me. “Hey, how are you? You look different, that’s really pretty,” she greeted me.
“I haven’t changed, I don’t look different!” I uttered these words too violently and too loudly, and then I jerked my head around to stare at her. I touched my face and the back of my head, wanting to make sure that everything was still as it should be.
She backed away from me, rightfully giving me that look that said I had gone off the deep end. “I merely meant to compliment you,” she assuaged cautiously. Only then did I realize how strange my behavior must seem.
I slowly leaned back in my seat and placed both hands on my thighs to still them. “Have you seen the new building across from Billa? I only noticed it the other day,” I said conversationally, trying to act as if nothing untoward had happened.
“You mean the Billa parallel to Alpenstraße?”
I nodded. She was still bewildered by my earlier antics and thus wary of me trying to kid her. “I was going to buy a few things there on my way home. I’ll take a look,” she said reluctantly.
Since we both needed some things from the grocery store, and since she seemed to have forgotten the embarrassing incident after a little more small talk, we went there together. I pointed out the imposing new building. She shook her head and stepped back, apparently fed up with my bullshit: “It’s just the same old derelict ruin of a house that’s stood here forever. What is wrong with you today?”
Stunned by her reaction, I wanted to eliminate any possible misunderstanding: “We’re talking about the yellow mansion right in front of us, aren’t we?”
“I don’t see a yellow mansion. There’s no yellow mansion anywhere in sight. I really need to go now, take care.” She waved and briskly walked away, half spooked and half pissed off by my behavior. We hadn’t even bought our groceries.
I wanted to be absolutely sure, so I asked a passer-by to describe the house in question. All she needed to label it and pull out the rug from under my feet was a single word: “Dump.”
Once I’d reached my apartment, I regained my composure. I wondered how I must have looked, hurrying from shop window to shop window, staring frantically at my reflection. I smirked at my own fear and hoped that nobody had observed my strange behavior. Before I went to sleep, I called Sarah again, but in vain. It was often hard to reach her, but I was beginning to worry.
Over the following two weeks, I kept seeing houses where there were none. I was followed by men only I noticed, and I answered questions nobody had asked. I refrained from pointing out weird things to others, because I was afraid of being thought insane. I debated and stalled before I spoke up at all, and I was constantly on high alert, busy not drawing any negative attention. I ran an exhausting gauntlet.
When Andreas and I met the following Monday morning, he suddenly slapped both palms down on the table. “Alright, what is going on?” he asked, sounding impatient.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“You’ve been walking on eggshells for what, three weeks now? Tell me what’s going on.”
I didn’t feel comfortable lying to Andreas, so I chose to tell him a half truth: “I’ve been terribly stressed, that’s all. I feel as if I’m going crazy.”
He studied me, pondered that for a moment, and then smiled contentedly. “I know what you need. You’re coming to the campus party with me and my friends tonight. That’ll do you good.” The prospect almost scared me, given how my last attempt at going out and having fun had ended. I might spend my nights thinking of Michael, but it had been a horrifying evening and night. I know many people would have appreciated, even cherished the revelation that there was a supernatural world contained within our own. Not so I. It was a shame. I’d always thought of myself as an open-minded person, intrigued by the supernatural. Now that I knew that these things existed, shouldn’t I be thrilled? On the other hand there was a real chance I was losing my mind, and nothing I had witnessed and experienced had ever occurred. After all I hadn’t seen Michael anymore after the day I returned the clothes, though he’d told me he wouldn’t leave me alone. Not that I minded, not that I was miffed by his radio silence – or was I?
Andreas cleared his throat and I realized he had been watching the play of my features. We had to go to class, and he decided to prevent me from declining: “You’ll come over to my place at eight, or I’ll never talk to you again.” He gave me a dazzling smile, of the sort no woman can resist.
5 FORBIDDEN BLOOD
I pressed his doorbell button at ten minutes past eight. I had put some effort into picking my outfit and putting on make-up. My black dress hugged my figure and highlighted my breasts, and the black heels made my legs appear longer. When he opened the door, I had already taken off my coat. Andreas’s expression was indifferent, but when he saw me, his eyes widened and he stared at me with his mouth hanging open. I cleared my throat and he stepped aside to let me pass. “Please, come in.” He’d never seen me dolled up. I think every woman understands the satisfaction I felt in that moment. I walked past him feeling confident. He closed the door, hugged me little longer than a platonic greeting warranted, and proceeded to flatter me: “You look stunning. You’re the woman of my dreams.”
“I know you well enough to know that lots of other women have heard that from you.”
“Of course they have, but with you I really mean it.”
I gave him a mischievous grin. “And that is another sentence lots of other women get from you.” We both laughed.
“You just wait, I’ll sweep you off your feet one day,” he promised with a smug smile.
“Sure,” I replied sarcastically, hoping we could now revert to our usual, friendly connection.
The reactions of the other men present were similar. Franz, a guy who’d only suffered me because I was a friend of Andreas, took less than five minutes before he sat down next to me, invading my space and reeking of intoxication. After a lot of meaningless back and forth, he confessed that he’d always thought me a little creepy, but that in reality I was seriously hot. He was average-looking, shallow, and didn’t interest me the least bit.
The campus party was really fun though. The music was way too loud, but I enjoyed myself, I danced, and for the first ti
me in several weeks, I laughed boisterously without thinking of anything spooky. That night I was the proverbial Dancing Queen. I moved my hips and got down to any kind of music. If there is one thing I’m really good at, it’s dancing. A number of guys paid for my drinks, and Andreas abandoned his female companion, joined me on the dance floor, put an arm around my waist and declared: “I’ll never go out without you again. Had I known how much fun you are with a little alcohol and music, I wouldn’t have wasted my time with you studying.” I immediately protested that I hadn’t had any alcohol apart from one glass of sparkling wine. Then I kissed him lightly on the cheek and noticed for the first time how unflatteringly pointed his ears were. I smiled as I pulled away from his embrace and left him alone, dancing away to the beat. When I turned around again, he’d already returned to his date and was kissing her. It was past midnight when I started to feel tired. I decided to call it a night while everything was still perfect. When I crossed the dance floor and headed for the exit, I thought that maybe I would actually be permitted to continue my regular life, maybe the call for help from Michael and the vampires would never come. But as the saying goes, don’t count your chickens before they hatch. Right by the exit, leaning casually against the wall, I spied none other than Michael, protagonist of my daydreams. He wore blue jeans and a simple green shirt. He looked good enough to eat. Had he not been the symbol of my connection to the still hazy supernatural world, I would have been happy to see him. But as it was, I was torn, feeling a chaos of butterflies in my stomach, paired with existential dread and bone-deep fear. Was I supposed to throw myself into his arms and kiss him, or turn on my heel and run like the wind? My inner turmoil was effectively cut off by Franz, who was utterly drunk and pushed me to the floor in a clumsy attempt to fling his arms around my neck. “Ouch!”
No surprise: As soon as Michael was around, I was injured again. Franz had fallen on top of me. I tried to roll the barely conscious fellow student off of me, but then a hand grabbed him and dragged him off me roughly. The same hand then pulled me up by my arm and put me back on my feet. Michael didn’t waste a breath, but asked with a lordly shake of his head: “How are you ever getting by without me?”
“You’re getting it all wrong, pal. Once you show up, I’ll get hurt. How long have you been here?”
“For a while. I have to admit, it was pretty interesting so far.”
“Seen something you like?”
He studied me from head to toe, concluding on a sigh: “Oh yes.” Then he ramped it up: “You could make a lot of money dancing in my club. The go-go dancers could learn a thing or two from you.”
My mouth opened in shock and I gave him a slight shove, but then I said, offering a challenge: “Do you want me to show you what sassy dancing really looks like?” I put an arm around his neck, rolled my hip to the left, and let my right hand drag my dress up my leg in sync with the movement, letting the slinky fabric slide down again the next moment, before I turned my back on him in one smooth move, and rubbed my hip against his as I let it drop. I continued to dance in a provocative way, moving in ways my body suggested. He put his arms around me, adapting to my moves. Sarah fittingly called this sort of dancing a ‘sex dry run.’ After two minutes of that, I offered him my friendliest smile and tried to pull away from his embrace, but he pulled me back against him and kissed me with more passion than ever before. For a moment I forgot that we were on the dance floor, pressing against him with a low, desiring moan. I knew I should pull away, but my body wouldn’t have it. I finally managed to take a step backwards. “Why are you here?” I asked, sounding rather breathless. Apparently I had managed to throw him off course with my dancing, for he looked at me disoriented and confused. It took him a moment to regain his composure, a fact that I secretly gloried in. Nothing was better than unnerving a man in a way like this.
“You’re coming to a party with me,” he said, still a little muddled.
“Couldn’t you at least ask me? Even if you don’t mean it.” He ignored my protest and turned his attention to the other side of the dance floor. I followed his gaze and saw Daniel standing there. The next moment he was gone.
“We have to go. They’re expecting us.” Now Michael sounded hounded.
“Who expects us and where?” I demanded, while I followed him out to the parking lot and to his car.
“You’ll see. Trust me and don’t ask so many questions. The less you know the safer you will be.”
“What are your fights with these other people about? I don’t want to end up helping you destroy the world.”
“This is not about good and evil, but rather about bad blood from ancient times.”
“So you’re all risking your lives because you’re at odds about something? What differences are worth a war?”
“This is about power, old feuds whose origin nobody remembers, and of course it’s also about political quarrels. Some vampires for example are of the opinion that it isn’t necessary to kill and enslave humans. Others think that this is your only raison d’être.”
“I hope your allies are part of the first group.”
He raised his eyebrows. “If that wasn’t the case, we’d hardly have allowed you to continue on with your life as before. We would have kept you with us so you would be available at all times.”
“What are you really?” No reply; he’d obviously decided to once again ignore this question. Alright, let’s try another tack. “Michael, how old are you?”
“What do you think?” He was evading me again. I wouldn’t give up so easily this time. “You look like you’re in your mid to late 20s, but my instinct tells me you are much older.”
“You know your instincts are working, you should trust them.”
“My instincts are yelling at me to pack my bags and leave the country.”
He uttered a loud, arrogant laugh. “Trust me, you wouldn’t be able to leave the country.” He smirked as he held open the door of his car, a new Audi S8. His last remark had unsettled me a little, so I hesitated. He picked up the vibe of fear right away. “Why aren’t you getting in?”
“Every time I’m starting to feel a little more comfortable in your presence, you say something utterly disconcerting.” My voice sounded more frightened than I had intended. He studied me thoughtfully. “As long as you behave and do what I say, no harm will come to you,” he finally stated.
I threw my hands up in frustration and then let them drop back on my thighs. “See, you just did it again. It’s like a textbook attempt at brainwashing me. The bottom line of what you’re saying is that you are in control of my life now, but I should be glad about that, because the big bad Wolf is after me and you guys are protecting me. But should I try to refuse you, you’re letting me know that I don’t stand the slightest chance. Oh, and to top it all off, I’m supposed to trust you unconditionally.” I knew I wasn’t making perfect sense, but he got the message.
He looked at me patiently and asked in a soft voice: “Would you please do me the great favor to get in the car?” I exhaled tiredly and set down in the passenger seat.
The vampire from the party had made himself comfortable in the backseat. He leered at me. “Good to see you again. Your performance on the dance floor was deliciously inspiring.”
I felt my cheeks redden, so I resolved to ignore his comment, and merely gave him a curt “Hello.” Had I told him that I was happy to see him again, it would have been a lie. My mind was wrestling with a thousand questions. Michael was the only person I could talk to about the events of the preceding weeks. I suspected that, wherever it was that we were going, more people or vampires would be waiting for us. So I ignored the guy in the back and asked with some trepidation. “Do you still remember what we talked about before you slammed the door in my face?”
This ensured that I got his attention. He motioned for me to go on, so I did. “Over the last few weeks I frequently noticed things which my friends did not see, could not see. I saw houses that didn’t exist, men that observed me b
ut were obviously not really there, and I answered questions nobody had posed.”
“Why didn’t you call me and talk to me about it?” As crazy as I was about him, I also held a healthy mortal fear for this man. But I didn’t say that, I merely thought about it and didn’t reply to this question. He probed: “Don’t tell me you hoped we would forget about your existence.” He studied my face. “You are incredibly naïve. The men you saw where there to protect you.” He opened his mouth to continue, but I cut him off. “To protect me? Why do I need protection when I go to my lectures?” There it was again, the panicky feeling in my gut.
“The less you know the better. Give me an example of those houses you’ve seen.”
“There is a grocery store close to campus, located parallel to Alpenstraße. And across the street there used to be an old, neglected house. But ever since that night – you know which one I mean – I see a beautiful yellow mansion in its place.”
“It seems that we underestimated you. The place you describe is one of our magically camouflaged houses. I’d never have thought you might be this immune to magic,” the vampire behind me spoke up.
I had all but forgotten his presence and thus gave a start. As soon as I trusted my own voice again, I asked: “So if I’m not going crazy, why have these things only been happening since I met you guys?”
“That’s an interesting question. It’s possible that our presence has awakened something inside you,” Daniel ventured. “You mean like a trigger? I wish I’d stayed home that night.”
“Whatever the trigger might’ve been, your abilities have always been a part of you. What interests me is where they come from. Tell me about your parents. I want to know everything about them.”
Thank God I had barely ever mentioned my parents to Sarah. I would never drag them into this mess. Up until this moment, I’d always been sad that they moved to California, but now I felt as if I’d never been this glad about anything in my life.
Peris Night: Terakon (Secret Language) Page 5