by Donna Ansari
“Hey! I didn’t know you came to this club!” I heard a voice shout at me.
When I looked up, I was surprised to see Ash. “Oh, hi,” I said. Even though he was human, I was annoyed to have been taken by surprise again.
“Who are you with?” he asked.
I paid for my drink and took a small sip. “No one.”
“No, not like that.” He held up his own wrist and pointed at the red band.
I took another drink to disguise my shock. Was this something blood dolls generally did? Talk about what vampire they belonged to? The thought of giving Alex’s name flitted through my head, but I didn’t feel comfortable, not knowing Ash’s story.
“I would prefer not to say.” I hoped my voice sounded calm. “You?”
He shrugged and moved on. “Why haven’t you come back to work?”
“I got a better offer from another agency,” I said. It was the first thing I could think of, but I soon realized what a bad lie it was. If I were a blood doll, obviously it would be best for me to work for a vampire-owned company.
“Sure,” he said, in an off-handed way. “See you around.”
Ash then turned and walked off into the crowd. I tried to follow him with my eyes, but it was too packed. Nervous that before long there would be at least two vampires who knew I was here, I downed the rest of the soda in one gulp and headed for the door.
But I hadn’t gotten more than a few feet when a strong hand clamped down on my shoulder. For a split second, I let myself hope that it was Alex. But when I turned around, it was Michael who was standing in front of me.
“Emma, my dear,” he said. “How unfortunate. What has happened to you?”
Looking intently at a spot on the floor, I said, “I’m not sure.”
He grabbed my chin in his hands and lifted my face up so my eyes met his. “What happened?”
His question was so vague that even under hypnosis, I didn’t know how to answer it. “I ate a soft pretzel and got a manicure....”
Annoyance registered on his face. “Come with me.”
Even I could understand that, so when he turned around and walked back to the office, I followed quietly behind him.
It’s somewhat difficult to panic while under hypnosis, but I was nonetheless carrying on just fine. I didn’t know whether to hope that Alex was in the office or not. After all, he was the one who would potentially get in trouble for not telling Michael about the demon that could turn vampires back into the living.
Michael opened the door to the same small office room that Alex had taken me to. He gestured for me to enter, and that’s when I saw Henri behind the desk again, but there was no sign of Alex anywhere.
“Have a seat, my dear.” Michael gestured toward the couch and I obligingly sat. It hadn’t been a command since I wasn’t looking into his eyes when he said it, but I figured there was no point in resisting anyway.
He sat down next to me. “Now then, tell me, does Alex know about this?”
He was glaring into my eyes, so I had no choice but to say “Yes.”
“Then I’m sure he’ll be telling me how it happened soon enough and without any prompting,” Michael said, taking my hand. “But to be perfectly honest, I care less about how it happened and more about the fact that it has.”
All the time he was talking, I made an attempt to break eye contact, but I found that it was impossible. Even though he wasn’t actively giving any commands, I was unable to take any action besides sitting still and listening to him. I was probably slack jawed too.
“You may have noticed that you were the lone woman vampire. That wasn’t by accident; it was by design. I don’t think women make good vampires. Your sex is too emotional and too weak. I asked Alex to dispose of you after you had completed your purpose. But he couldn’t.”
Michael used his free hand to brush my hair behind my ears. “You see, you remind us of a very old friend of ours, and Alex let himself get sentimental when he chose to turn you. But had I met you first, I would have had you take on a role you’re far more suited to.”
“But before we get into that, I have to ask this—has Alex drank from you?”
“No.” I suddenly had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.
“I suppose it’s better that way. Although as Prince of the city, I would naturally have the right to take over anyone else’s blood dolls anyway.”
As both a former vampire and former potential witch, as well as possibly being the girlfriend of a vampire, it had never occurred to me that this would happen. But the immunity I thought I had appeared to be nothing more than a figment of my imagination.
Chapter Fourteen
“Now my dear, I’m sure you remember the procedure. I’m going to bite you and drink your blood, and you will do nothing to stop me. Don’t worry. It won’t hurt. In fact, I’ll do my best to make it somewhat pleasant.”
It wasn’t like I had any choice whatsoever. Michael tilted my head and brought his mouth down to the side of my neck. I felt his cold tongue lick along my skin. If I wasn’t already creeped out, that would have done it for sure.
Even though I was hyper aware of his teeth and waiting for them to pierce my skin, I almost didn’t realize the moment had arrived when it did. On one other occasion, when I had been a vampire, Michael had bitten me and drank my blood. But then he had been purposely trying to both hurt me and take too much blood.
By contrast, this felt gentle and cooling, like a cold cloth gliding along fevered skin. It almost felt nice. My shoulders, which he was still holding onto, finally relaxed, and I brought my arms around his waist. I even heard myself sigh. Once I was completely at ease, it occurred to me that he was right—the sensation was rather pleasant.
Almost too soon, I felt his teeth being removed from my neck. Without thinking, I grasped him tighter.
He laughed. “Sorry, my dear, but I can’t take too much blood now, or else our time together will be severely cut short.”
Reluctantly, I let him go, and he sat back on the sofa a bit. For some reason, I was surprised to note that Henri was still in the room, behind the desk, in a place where I could see him but Michael could not. His dark eyes shot up to me for a second, and then he went back to what he was doing, namely furiously tapping at his cell phone.
When I looked back at Michael, he appeared very intent. “Kiss me.”
Without hesitation, I leaned forward, put my arms around his neck, and touched my lips to his. Although I had kissed more than one vampire before, this felt very different. Most noticeable was the temperature difference between us. I was used to being the same room-temperature as other vampires, or colder compared to the humans that I kissed.
There was also the question of strength, in more ways than one. I was used to being stronger or at least as strong as everyone I had physical contact with, but now I was acutely aware that I could not have broken our embrace if I tried. Not that I wanted to.
On some level, I knew that Michael had always repulsed me, and that nothing about that had changed, but nevertheless, I couldn’t sway my current opinion of him, which was that he was the best thing that had ever happened to me, and if I ever had to part with him, I would not be able to go on living.
Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how I looked at it, his cell phone started ringing. I didn’t have any desire to get off his lap, which I had at some point wriggled on, but he took me firmly by the shoulders and pushed me back onto the couch without apology.
“Yes?” he said into the phone. After a slight pause, he asked, “What exactly is the situation?”
For my part, I pulled my legs up under me and started silently crying. I wasn’t sure if I was upset by his apparent rejection, or the very fact that he was most likely going to make me his blood doll.
Even though I was silent, Michael glanced up at me and smiled. Was it to be reassuring? Or was he happy at my misery? My thoughts were too confusing to keep track of.
“Yes, I’m leaving now,” he s
aid into the phone. Then he hung up and put it back in his pocket.
“I apologize, my dear, but it seems I’m needed elsewhere.” He took my hand in his.
“When will I see you again?” I managed to choke out between sobs.
“Tomorrow night there is a large, mandatory meeting for all vampires,” he said. “You will attend as my companion.”
I nodded and he continued. “You should have the information in the paperwork Alex gave you.”
Michael stood and helped me to get up off the couch. “Okay,” I said agreeably.
We walked out onto the street using the same door Alex had ushered me out of during my previous visit. Michael put a hand up, and a yellow cab stopped almost immediately.
“Until then,” he said, kissing me on the lips again. Then he got into the car and it pulled away from the curb.
It took me a few moments to realize I had been left standing there. When I put my hand up, a cab stopped for me as well, but when I told the driver I was going to Queens, he said, “Sorry, lady,” and drove away. The next one didn’t even bother to say he was sorry.
Eventually, I gave up on a cab and got on the subway instead. It was unsurprising that the only way a Manhattan cab driver would go to Queens was with the power of mind control.
Once on the train, I took out my phone and saw that Tammy had called me five times. There were also several texts from her, ranging from I’m sorry to Where the hell are you?
There was nothing from Alex, despite my obvious plea for help. Not that it mattered anymore, I told myself. I was with Michael, and a small part of me was exceedingly happy about it. From what I knew about vampire mind control, I thought the part of me that wanted Michael would continue to grow until I no longer even thought about Alex.
Not wanting to think about it anymore, I closed my eyes and napped during the train ride to Queens.
When I eventually made it home, I found Tammy and Amy sitting on opposite ends of the living room, glaring at each other. My cat, unaffected by their moods, was sleeping on the floor between them.
“What’s going on?” I asked, looking from one to the other.
“Her father was here,” Tammy growled.
“And I wasn’t here,” Amy said.
“What happened?”
“All of our coven members lost their magic,” Tammy said.
“Please, like you guys would even notice the difference,” the teen said.
“Hey, watch it, kid!” Tammy stood up.
Amy jumped up then too, and yelled, “Or what?”
Gypsy even opened one eye and yawned.
“Why are you upset?” I asked Amy.
“Because I wasn’t even here when he came. I had a chance to meet him, and I missed him!”
“It’s almost like he’s avoiding you on purpose,” Tammy said. “Maybe it’s because you’re such a brat that even a demon doesn’t want to deal with you.”
“Shut up!” Amy yelled, stomping away.
I was too tired to follow after her, so I instead sat next to Tammy. “What exactly do you remember?”
“So we all got together to try to figure out this demon’s name and how to get rid of it and whatever. We had a ton of books from the Magickal Well, but they were very dense, and we were making no progress after more than an hour. So we ordered some food and decided to do a group meditation to clear our heads. There’s pizza by the way.” She indicated to the dining room table.
“No thanks,” I said. I didn’t know when the queasy feeling I had had most of the day would go away, but until then it didn’t seem worth it to try to eat, especially something I had already eaten since becoming human.
“Anyway, we did a pretty simple group meditation to find our focus, and then we all visualized the symbol that you saw. Everyone had their eyes closed, so it’s hard to say for sure when he showed up. But I started to feel odd, like I was hollow, and also unable to hold the meditation any longer. So that’s when I opened my eyes and saw him.”
Tammy appeared to have lost her train of thought, so I asked, “What did he look like?”
“Pale, blonde, and beautiful. Kind of like Amy. Definitely not someone scary to look at.” She paused. “Not my type but I could see why you wanted to make out with him.”
“Could you see what he was doing?”
“He was just sort of standing there looking like he was in a sexy music video or something. And then he disappeared.”
“Like in a puff of smoke?” I asked.
“Exactly that,” she said. “Minus the puff of smoke. And that’s when we all realized our powers were gone too.”
Granted I knew less about being a witch and practicing magic than anyone that had been there, but even so, I could see the somewhat obvious flaw in what they had done.
“You guys were doing magic while thinking of the symbol that represents the demon, and you were surprised that you attracted his attention?”
“Well, when you put it like that....”
“No, it’s good that we know that. Amy can use it to call him.” Then I remembered something Diana had said. “Of course, he may use her to rip a hole in the universe or something.”
“Yeah,” Tammy said. “We should probably keep them separate.”
“How?” I asked.
“Send that little snot to Florida with her mother,” was Tammy’s suggestion.
From somewhere behind me, I heard a thump. “Amy? Were you sitting on the stairs and listening?” It was something I used to do when I was a kid, and it was past my bedtime.
A reluctant reply was heard. “Yeah. But I don’t want to rip a hole in the universe. I just want to meet my dad.”
I turned and faced the stairs. “It wouldn’t be you who was doing the ripping. You may be a powerful half demon, but your father is an even more powerful full demon. It’s not like we’ll be able to control him in any way.”
“Unless....” Tammy looked thoughtful. “What do you do with demons?”
“Ummm,” I answered. “Make out with them? Suck their blood? Have a half-demon child?”
“No, no. You banish them,” Tammy said. “He may be powerful, but he still has the weaknesses that all demons have. You can contain them in a magic circle and you can banish them.”
Chapter Fifteen
Amy ran back down the stairs. “No one is banishing my father.”
“She has a point,” I said. “None of us are witches anymore. Who would be doing the banishing?”
“Amy, listen,” Tammy said. “You have to do it. Look at what happened to Emma, David, and me. And he’s obviously not stopping.”
Amy folded her arms across her chest and stopped her foot again. “Even if he were banished, it wouldn’t bring any of your powers back.”
“Maybe not, but it would stop him from sucking all the magic out of the world,” Tammy said.
“Why should I care about the world?” Amy asked.
At this point, she was even starting to get on my nerves. “Maybe because you’re in it,” I suggested. “Maybe because if you hadn’t summoned a demon, I wouldn’t be like this now.”
“Look, I’m sorry you’re no longer awesome,” Amy said. “But you can still become a vampire again. Just ask your boyfriend to do it.”
At that point, I had to sit back down. Before I knew it, tears were streaming down my face.
“Emma?” Tammy asked. “What happened?”
I rested my head in my hands and shook it.
“Where did you go tonight and what happened?” she persisted.
“I just wanted to see Alex,” I mumbled. “He wasn’t answering my calls, and I just wanted to see him.”
“So what happened when you saw him?” Tammy asked.
“I didn’t see him. He wasn’t at the club. I saw Michael.”
She dropped down on the floor in front of me. “What happened? What did he do to you?”
“I shouldn’t have gone there,” I said. “I should have known something like this would happen.�
�
“Em, you’ve got to tell me what happened.”
“Why?” I looked up at her. “What can you do? You’re not even a witch anymore. Not that you could have helped me anyway. If you could have done something about that, you would have helped Ethan.”
Tammy gasped. “Did he bite you? That asshole!”
“You can’t really blame him,” I pointed out. “After all, it is what vampires do.”
“But now do you love him or something?”
I had to think about it for a minute. “No, not really. But I think I will come to believe that I love him after a few more times. Right now, I’m almost as sad at being away from him as I am that it happened.”
“Wait a minute,” she said. “Are you sure he didn’t do anything else to you?”
“He kissed me. Or rather, he told me to kiss him, and I did.”
“And you’re sure that was all? Just kissing?”
“Yeah, I’m sure. Another vampire was in the room, and also his phone rang with some sort of emergency that he had to go take care of.”
“But next time you may not be so lucky,” she said. “Assuming there will be a next time.”
“I’m pretty sure there will be a next time. He asked me to join him at some big vampire event tomorrow,” I said. “Besides, vampires are not the type to let people go. He’ll probably use me for a few years and then kill me. That’s what they do with all their female blood dolls.”
Tammy looked horrified. “And you’re just going to let it happen? And Alex is just going to let it happen?”
I shrugged. “It’s not like I can do anything, and pretty soon, I won’t even want to. And Michael is the Prince of the city, so he has first pick of all the humans.”
Tammy glared at me for a few more seconds before turning around and pointing to Amy. “This is all your fault! Now do you feel bad? Or are you not capable of feeling anything for anyone except yourself?”
“I’m sorry,” Amy said softly. “I just wanted to meet my father. I didn’t want anything to happen to Emma. I would give her back her powers if I could. But I only know how to take them away. I don’t know how to give them back.”