by Maren Smith
There are certain times when meant, intent and effort count for shit, and this is one of them. “Bullshit. Because it happened like that tonight.”
I twist in my seat, putting my back to him as much as possible with the seatbelt still on and the graze on my ribs aching. We drive in silence so heavy I feel crushed by it.
“Are you menstruating?” he eventually asks.
I jerk around far enough to glare at him. “Is that your way of saying I’m being an irrational bitch?”
I’m shaking. I can’t remember another time when I’ve ever felt so dangerously angry.
He doesn’t look at me. “You’re bleeding.”
The statement cuts through my anger, setting me adrift. I’m still shaking, but now all I feel is helpless.
I think I hate him.
Snapping back over to face the window again, I fold my arms tight across my chest. I hunch down in my seat as if I can somehow disappear into it. I want to cry, but though my eyes burn furiously, I can’t even do that.
The world is passing so fast outside it’s giving me a headache. I close my eyes, which only seems to make the burning worse.
Aleron doesn’t speak again, but eventually he slows down and just before we reach the turnoff from I-10 to I-19, he pulls over on to the side of the freeway. It’s not yet ten o’clock and the traffic, although not as heavy as during the day, isn’t light. Still, Aleron only waits long enough for an eighteen-wheeler to go barreling past fast enough to rock the car, and then he gets out.
I lock the doors just before he reaches me.
He unlocks them—fucking key fob—and opens the door. Hunkering down beside me, he checks my ribs first, then my neck. When I feel his hand touch the hem of the man’s button-down shirt I’m wearing—his shirt, damn it—I quickly grab the two halves, folding them over one another, and shove them down between my legs to block him.
Letting his hand rest on my thigh, he studies me. Ours is a silent battle of wills, and one that I inevitably lose. I move my hands, but only because I know he can just compel me to anyway.
He checks me… down there. All I can do is sit, blushing, helplessly angry, and trying not to react to the near-impersonal touch of his fingers. They come away only slightly damp, but not with blood.
Finally, he finds it, a scratch on the back side of my left thigh where I must have got cut when we went out the window. It isn’t deep, but I must have pulled it open again when I twisted sideways on the seat. From the inner pocket of his suit jacket, he pulls out a white handkerchief, which he uses to stop the bleeding again. One of the benefits to riding along with a vampire with impeccable fashion sense—there’s always a handkerchief when you need one.
Abandoning his hanky to its new role in life as my bandage, Aleron stands up.
“Why are you doing this?” I can’t help but ask.
He looks at me for a long time in silence, picking through a veritable minefield of answers before giving me none of them. His mouth opens, but then closes again without a word. Closing the door instead, he gets back in the car and quickly merges us back into traffic.
I face the window with my eyes closed against the burning, the heavy silence only getting heavier with every mile.
I wonder what it was he thought better of saying to me.
I wonder even more why it matters.
Aleron
Why are you doing this? she asks.
I almost tell her, but manage to stop myself in time. The answer could not be more obvious or more wrong, and I am made very uncomfortable by it.
Because she’s mine.
Because I would no sooner abandon her to die than I would willingly walk out into the bright burning light of the sun.
I’ve never felt this before. When I was human, the middle son of a noble lord, I was quite handy with the ladies. My prey then consisted of the servants and what daughters and wives could be enticed from among the serfs who owed my father their tithe and their loyalty. I grew fond of some. One I even professed to love, but in all the years since, I have come to learn that I was far too self-absorbed and interested in my own pleasure to love anyone else.
Then came the call of the crusades and—for the promise of money, land, a title of my own, not to mention the succubus allure of what promised to be a grand adventure, I answered.
In the Muslim-controlled city of Antioch, I found my death at the hands of a vampire who wanted only to be left alone. He made me. He made others as well. We became Antioch’s thirstiest army, feeding unfettered on soldiers from both sides, and what did I fall in love with then, but the intoxication of life everlasting. The unparalleled rush that comes of filling my sluggish veins with the rich euphoria emptied from another’s.
I suppose that is love of a sort, but it doesn’t last.
Eventually, we turned on each other, animals that we were.
I am the last of my nest and somewhere in the long line of centuries that have passed between then and now, I have evolved. The selfishness of the nobleman is gone. So is the warrior, turned blood-thirsty killer. I read books now. I have learned how to feed without killing. I have learned how to be sociable in the company of others. I have learned how to be civilized.
And jaded.
And bored.
But this… this unbearable fondness… somehow it has worked its way into me. It crouches in my chest where a beating heart ought to be, and the roots of it burrow in far beyond my ability to pluck them out again.
This is not a mess of my making. I don’t know who made this mess, but I do know I won’t abandon Merris to face it alone.
Because she’s mine, though she shouldn’t be. It took nine centuries for me to find this, and yet it is no kindness for her.
I want her with the same unbearableness that makes a newly-sired ache to feed.
I want her that badly, but I can’t have her. I shouldn’t.
I won’t.
I’ll get her through this, but as soon as I can make her safe, I am going to wipe her mind. I’ll rob her of every trace of me, and then I’ll melt back into the shadows. I’ll keep watch, just to make sure she stays safe and that she never needs for anything. Eventually, she’ll fall in love with another. She’ll marry, have babies, grandbabies. She’ll grow old where I can’t. She’ll die, leaving me behind.
Life as it should be.
I miss her already.
The Tohono O’odham exit comes up, and her head lifts off the pillow of her headrest when I take it.
“Where are we going?” she asks.
“San Xavier del Bac Mission,” I tell her, even as we pass the sign giving directions to the old church.
“Why?” she asks, and I can hear it in her voice. She doesn’t know why we’re here, but she’s pretty sure it’s not because I’ve suddenly found God or an urge to pray.
“I need to ask a question, and he’s the only one I know who might have the answer.”
“He?” She sits up a little straighter, watching out the front windshield as the lights of the mission come into view. “He who?”
“Ignacio Gaona,” I tell her.
“A vampire,” she guesses. “Who lives in a church?”
“He doesn’t just live here,” I don’t bother to hide my amusement at her dubious tone. “Once upon a time, he helped rebuild this place after it was destroyed in an Apache attack. Let’s hope he’s still in residence.”
She stares at the welcome sign as we pass it, and probably at the mission’s visiting hours clearly posted at the bottom. The last tourists were sent home hours ago. Apart from my car, pulling up to one of the front stalls, the parking lot is empty.
“We are so getting arrested,” she says, shouldering open the door.
“Oh ye of little faith,” I say dryly, unsure if I ought to be amused or insulted that she thinks I would ever allow myself to get arrested.
It’s all right. She’s still learning. I’ll forgive her.
I also take the lead, carrying her upon my back because she
has no shoes and really, what is Arizona but one gigantic cactus needle puncture waiting to happen? With her arms wrapped around my neck and her legs around my hips, I wend my way around one of the state’s oldest churches, through the garden to the stone hill that rises out of the desert landscape. The simple cross atop it is illuminated, but the rest is dark, including the stone grottos around the base, one of which houses a saintly statue with hands serenely splayed as if in adoration of all the flowers, candles and offerings that litter its base from both pilgrims and tourists alike.
I’ve never been here before, but I’ve heard about it. Like most vampires aged enough to know how to survive on our own, there are certain things that we just can’t help keeping track of. Shifter packs are one, since a careless move into the wrong territory could easily get us killed. But also, vampires older and more powerful than ourselves, sometimes for the same reason.
That is how I know to reach into the shadows behind the statue, feeling along the craggy rocks for something that moves when you push it. I disturb a tarantula tucked within a long crack, but eventually I do find it.
When I push, a low grinding signals the opening of a hidden entryway in the next shadowy recess over. There are no lights and very quickly the shadows swallow what few steps I can see leading down into the dark. Activating the flashlight on my cellphone, I set Merris down safely upon the steps.
“Stay close,” I command, and carefully start down this narrow flight of steps. The Arizona night is cool, but under the hill it’s much cooler. The temperature doesn’t affect me any more than the darkness, but Merris is another matter, and when the hidden doorway to the surface world slowly grinds closed again, her shivers tremble through the hand that suddenly grabs my arm. There is now nothing but blackness above and below us, with only a handful of steps illuminated in what should have been the brightness of my phone. Quiet, cool, still as a tomb, it’s as if the black of the stones swallow the light.
“Please tell me we’re not now stuck down here,” she says, staring up into the darkness.
“I’m almost certain I can find a way out,” I reply. “I’ve never been here before, so it might take some time.”
“Okay,” she said, visibly struggling to be comforted.
“One night, maybe three or four at most.”
She nods.
“It’s all right,” I add. “I brought a snack.”
Nervous she might be, but she’s not stupid. Catching herself mid-nod, she glares at me. “Ha ha,” she deadpans.
Well, I thought it was funny.
Giving her my coat for warmth, we continue down.
The stairs are evidence that someone with an experienced and patient hand was long at work, building this place. There are no twists or curves, no widenings in the span. I turn almost sideways to keep my shoulders from brushing and possibly wedging between opposite rock walls. I’m tempted to think someone watches too many vampire movies, but these steps go on for far too long, taking us well below the surface and far, far from where I parked my car. This kind of care speaks to age and very old fears at what being discovered would mean.
Twice Merris stops. Leaning against the wall, she picks her feet up, cupping her toes in her hands to warm them. There is no room, or I would carry her to spare her from the cold of the rocks. The only thing I can do is give her my socks and shoes. She looks like a child playing dress up in Papa’s clothes, clomping down the stone steps just behind me, one small hand on my shoulder to help keep her balance.
She is darling. That fondness for her helps distract me from the fact that I am now as undressed as I have ever been in public.
And then we come to the bottom, the last two steps of which open up wide enough for Merris and I to stand side-by-side, staring at the giant dead end before us. The stone slab that blocks our way is as smoothly chiseled as the ground beneath our feet. If there is another secret button or lever, I can’t find it, though I spend considerable time searching. Merris holds the phone aloft while I feel my way along everything—the dead-end slab, both walls, the floor and even several steps up. Tall as I am, I can’t reach the ceiling.
“What do we do now?” The stone eats her soft voice every bit as much as it devours the light. Barely an echo of it drifts back up the steps the way we’ve come.
“We wait.” Giving my trousers a tug, I lower myself to sit on the third step from the bottom. “Come,” I offer her both my hand and my lap so she will not have to sit on the chilly stairs, and she accepts.
All my years of civility culminate in very little from the moment she crawls onto my lap. Her back to my chest, the heat of her body seeps into me. I’m not much better than the cold stone all around us, but I do my best to keep her warm. Taking off my shirt, I use it as a blanket for her legs, tucking the ends in around her icy feet and even rubbing her toes. My shoes were too big to stay on her feet, and I could feel how cold they are through the thin weave of my socks.
I really will be naked by the time I get out of here.
“Thanks,” she says softly, hugging herself as she curls into me.
“Of course,” I reply, like a gentleman instead of one headily aware of the heat emanating from her sex and bottom. I both feel, hear, and smell the pulse of her beating heart. Her hair tickles my cheek when she bows her head, looking at my phone still clasped in her small hand.
“How old are you?” she asks. “Have you seen many things?”
“Many,” I assure her, happily granting both our needs for distraction. “I was human when first I ventured off, against my father’s wishes, mind you, to see how much wealth and adventure I could find on the crusades. I was as I am now when it came time for me to return, although it would be more than a hundred years before I chose to.”
“Why?” She lays her head upon my shoulder like a child settling in for a story.
I can’t help but stroke her soft hair, the dark strands like the finest silk between my fingers. “I didn’t want to watch my family succumb to age.”
“Have you traveled?” she asks around a soft yawn.
“Oh yes. Let me see.” What stories can I tell her that don’t involve death and feeding? “Europe, Africa, the Orient back when it was called such.”
“And now you live in Arizona, and you’re a member of an S&M club where people go to get snacked on.”
A smile tugs my tips. “Only the lucky ones.”
“How is that lucky?”
In the light of my cellphone, I show her my right hand. “I could make you come, Merris my darling, with nothing more than my smallest finger. Would you like me to show you?”
She squirms, her hot bottom grinding against my lap. “That’s okay,” she demurs, looking away so I won’t see her blushing.
“Are you sure?” I love teasing her. Her blush deepens, but her tell-tale heart quickens and the heat between her thighs grows beautifully scented.
I stroke her hair again, before letting my left hand steal up under the silken tresses to cup the back of her neck. I caress her, gentle up and down strokes of my thumb following her spine. Have her nipples pebbled into nibble-able peaks yet? Swaddled as she is in my coat, it’s impossible to tell, but I would bet so. I am arousing her.
She doesn’t say no, either. She doesn’t say anything, and when she shivers again, I know it’s not solely because of the cold.
“How often do you go?” she asks, her normally soft voice slightly husky.
“Club Toxic?” When she nods, I slip my fingers up her neck, combing them up into the soft hair to caress her scalp. “Often.”
“Did…” Her breath catches slightly. “Did we have sex there?”
My hand stills in her hair. “No,” I answer, unsure if I ought to be surprised or appalled that my mind wipe seems not to have been as successful as I thought. “What do you remember?”
“My wrists cuffed to a bar, hoisted above my head.”
My eyebrows arch.
“You’re standing behind me.” Hesitantly, she looks at me.
“Your arms are around me. You’re kissing my neck as you reach down between my legs with that glove on your hand, and then you…” She flushes even brighter, her traitorous little heart beating faster. “You’re… sliding into me… from behind.”
“That was not at all what happened,” I tell her, beyond surprised. “Mind you, I’m far from opposed, but this is what your memories tell you?”
I often make suggestions when I wipe thoughts, but I don’t know any vampire who can replace true memories with fictional ones.
Staring into my eyes, a flicker of uncertainty creeps into hers. “Did you do that to my sister?”
“No.” Firmly and I hope for the last time, I tell her, “I did nothing but offer Jez a ride home the night she died. She refused. I regret that I did not insist. Answer me now, this is what your memories tell you I did?”
Very slightly, she shakes her head. “It’s what I see in my dreams,” she reluctantly confesses. “I’ve seen your face every night for weeks now. I saw it the night she died. At first, I thought it was you doing that to her, but then that guy at the club grabbed my arm—”
“The one I slammed against the wall?”
She nods. “And now, all I see is you and me and strange sex in strange places. Like at your house, in your bathroom.”
“One would think I’d pick a more romantic, if not sanitary location.” I can hardly think.
“I think I was seeing what we did in the bedroom. I got the wallpaper by the door wrong.”
“I swear the contractor bought every roll of that god-awful pattern that he could find. It’s in every room of the house.” I really must be besotted because, despite the incredulous nature of her claim, I find myself inclined to believe her.
“We’re about to lose the light,” she says.
And I’ll be damned, but no sooner does my gaze drop to my phone than does it wink out, casting us abruptly into pitch dark.
“Dear God.” The sound of my surprise echoes in the inky black. “You’re psychic.”
And she has seen us in entwined intimately together, not once but multiple times. That is not like me. That is more than just feeding. It’s more than mere fondness or my besotted allure to someone who should have been nothing more than supper.