by Sloan Archer
Around five, Robert came shuffling up behind me and planted a kiss on top of my head. He took a seat opposite me on the patio, where I sat zoning out on the crashing jade waves.
I opened my mouth and he said, “I’m fine.” He put his hands up. “Okay, not a hundred percent, but I’ll live. I think it’s just some tropical flu. As a human, I’ve got to get used to these things, right? No point in getting hysterical every time I sneeze.”
Reluctantly I said, “I suppose.” Though I’d never heard of a flu that made people suck on another person’s neck.
“Okay, Mercy, I know that look. What is it? I told you that I’m fine.”
“I believe you. It’s not that.”
“Then what is it?”
I stood and walked to the edge of the balcony. The sun felt amazing on my shoulders, like a warm blanket. I turned back around to face Robert, who was leaning forward in the lounge chair and waiting for me to elaborate.
“This may sound strange, but I had the weirdest feeling at the accident yesterday. Not quite déjà vu, but the sense that the scene was familiar. And I think I’ve figured out why.”
“Okay?”
“Remember that email from Mathew?” I shuddered and made a sour face. “Blech! I can hardly stand saying his name.”
“I feel the same way about hearing it,” Robert said dryly. “But please go on.”
“During one of his crazy-ass rants, he wrote about you getting into a car wreck.”
“Coincidence.”
“I’d think the same thing, but remember how specific it was? He’d hoped that you wrapped your car around a tree, which was exactly what happened.”
“That is odd,” Robert admitted. “But that is a fairly common thing, isn’t it? For humans to hit trees with their cars?”
“I guess . . . Sure. But then he also hoped that there were witnesses to your humiliation. He hoped that millions could see it, remember? Kind of strange, don’t you think, because those guys took photos of you? The paparazzi?”
Robert ran a hand through his hair, matted from fitful sleep. “I don’t know, Mercy . . .” He looked stressed, which made me regret saying anything. Robert had enough to worry about already.
“You know what, forget I said anything. It was dumb. Who cares about Mathew? I think I’ve been out of touch with reality for too long, inventing conspiracies and whatnot to keep myself entertained.” I did my best to sound convincing. “If you’re up for it, how about we take one last walk along the beach? Then we’ll come back and pack.”
“Perfect. And you don’t have to keep worrying about me, Mercy. I’m starting to feel better. I bet I’ll be tiptop by sundown.”
Robert did look better, like his fever had dropped five degrees while we were out there on the patio. Although, the sun did still seem to be aggravating his skin. He was twice as red as I was, and I’d spent hours more in the sun than he had. He was back inside before I got to question him about it.
We walked hand-in-hand on the beach, discussing what we were going to do in Russia. We didn’t have a lot to say on the subject, since our plans had been made a short time ago. Mostly we talked about getting new clothes. Our outfits in Bali consisted mainly of tropical staples: sandals, swimwear, floppy hats, sunglasses. It would be a lot colder in St. Petersburg.
“I’m going to miss this place,” I said.
“Me too. But we’re ending our stay right. Look, we’re the only ones on the beach. We couldn’t ask for a more perfect sendoff.”
When we turned around to make our way back towards the hotel, I tilted my chin toward the horizon. “What a beautiful sunset.”
“Hmm?” He sounded distracted.
I looked over at him and saw that Robert was gazing off into the distance.
I cupped a hand over my brow and squinted. “What is that? A flying animal? It’s . . . sparkling.”
“I can’t tell. Whatever it is, it’s moving fa—”
“Oh my God!” I screamed. “They’ve found us!”
Robert shoved me so roughly that I tumbled down onto the sand behind him. To an onlooker it would look as if he had assaulted me, but that was the very opposite of what was happening. He was trying to shield me from the approaching danger.
When the danger reached us, she sneered, “You’ve made a valiant effort at hiding, but I’m afraid the chase is over. Step aside, Robert Bramson.”
The vampire’s speech was smooth and heavily accented with Spanish origins. She was wearing one of Seraphim’s Smokescreen body suits and a full-face mask with reflective glass around the eyes. Both were metallic silver—now I got why Oliver had believed that his attackers at the lab were wearing spacesuits.
The woman looked like a complete lunatic, like she was running around on the beach swathed in tin foil. She carried a fat bowie knife, though her hands were weapons enough. Maybe she didn’t like getting blood under her nails. She appeared collected, her voice steady. This was no novice killer.
It was peculiar, the things people immediately thought to say when confronted with danger. For Robert it was, “How did you find us?” It wasn’t what I personally would have gone for, which would have been something more along the lines: Please don’t stab me!
“You two were all over the Internet.” The vampire snorted. “A car wreck? Really? You should be a lot more careful.”
Damn, the blasted Internet! Robert and I had been so fixated on newspapers that the possibility of our photos going viral hadn’t occurred to us.
The vampire peered around Robert and stared me down. “I don’t see the resemblance. You’re much prettier than Mallory Speck.”
“Thanks,” I muttered. How sick is that? I actually thanked the vampire who’d come to kill me.
She directed her attention back to Robert. “You used to be one of us, human, isn’t that right? If you give me the girl, I won’t kill you.”
“Never!” Robert growled. “If you go anywhere near her, I will be the one who kills you.”
The assassin shrugged. “Have it your way.”
She pounced. I screeched when a sizable chunk of seaweed tripped her up. Though the vamp righted herself in a millisecond, Robert seized the opportunity and ripped off her mask. She shrieked and turned away from the sun, shielding her face with her arms.
Unfortunately, it was at that precise moment that the sun went down.
The hitwoman was unharmed. Without the crazy face covering (and murderous intent aside), she was one beautiful senorita: wavy black hair to the center of her back, huge brown eyes, long lashes, pouty red lips. I wondered how old she was in immortal years and what she used to do before she started murdering for the VGO. It wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to imagine her flamenco dancing a century or so prior.
The follow-up action happened within seconds, which was how it usually went with vampires. As the struggle between Robert and the hitwoman ensued, I felt like I was observing the violence on a stage far, far away. I wouldn’t allow myself to accept the reality—that Robert was no match for the lethal vampire. This was a fight he was going to lose.
I had to confront the truth, however, as a bloody figure fell limp and heavy beside me. It was Robert. Protruding from his heart was the assassin’s knife.
Stuck in a surreal nightmare from which I couldn’t wake, I watched in horror as Robert began to die. I wouldn’t have to watch long, because now the assassin had her sights on me.
I was going to beg her to spare me . . . But then she lost her head.
Literally.
Standing behind the assassin was none other than my would-be vampire daddy, Jerome Bellamy. Held in his beefy hands was her head. Her eyes focused on me as her headless body groped out for my legs. Blood was spurting from the stump between her shoulders, covering my legs in gore. I yelped when her clawed fingers clamped around my calf and pulled.
Jerry pressed his hands together until her skull crushed and then jellified. The assassin let go of me when her body exploded into thousands of gooey lit
tle pieces.
The only thing that remained of the vampire was an imprint in the sand of her feet, a mound of jelly, and a set of fangs. The next wave that came in took care of the mess, sweeping it out all to sea. Jerry washed his hands off in the whitewash.
The aftermath happened swiftly. There was no anguished crying over Robert’s body, no screams directed towards the sky, no sirens, no violins playing, and no gathering crowd. All of those things—and more—probably would have happened, but then something miraculous transpired.
I nearly fainted when Robert sat up next to me. I gasped, and Jerry let out a few dry squawks of his own, as Robert extracted the knife from his healing body.
He gazed down at the bloody knife in confusion. “I’m dead?” he confirmed—or asked. It was hard to tell. He tossed the knife aside and probed the hole in his chest. The slit was now less than an inch long and closing.
I was too scared to move, worried that any motion I made would reverse whatever change was happening. Jerry, frozen as a block of ice, appeared to be thinking the same thing.
Robert poked a finger up under his upper lip. “Fangs,” he said, opening his mouth to show us.
“I think you are dead,” Jerry whispered. “Undead.”
Robert was in a daze. “I need blood.” His head bobbed woozily. The hole in his chest began to seep thick, cloudy plasma. It seemed to be lengthening, opening back up to its original size.
Jerry crouched next to Robert and pulled one of his arms over his shoulder. “Quick, Mercy, grab him! I have some blood back in my room.”
We didn’t have time to discuss the semantics of why Robert was spared from permanent death, or how he’d suddenly turned vampire. I knew from stories Robert had told me that a vampire could only heal from major injury if they consumed blood immediately after being hurt. If they didn’t, they’d die just like a human would.
I hoped our plan of feeding Robert blood would work. I couldn’t bear it if he died. Again. Witnessing his death once was plenty enough.
Robert had begun to heal almost instantly after drinking the blood. If it weren’t for Jerry (and his vampy long-distance hearing ability), Robert and I would have been goners. My debt to the vampire kept racking up. At the rate I was going, it would take me a thousand years to repay him. Jerry, being Jerry, wouldn’t hear of it. He said I owed him nothing.
While Robert recuperated inside the beautiful wood coffin that had originally been intended for me, Jerry and I discussed theories. We concluded that the change my blood induced in vampires was temporary—that it would change any vampire to human, but the amount of time they remained human varied. We also hypothesized that the amount of time it took for a new human to change back into a vampire directly correlated to their age.
I said, “It makes perfect sense. How did we not see it before? There’s a scientific explanation for all of this.”
“It’s either science,” Jerry said with a shaky smile, “or Robert has to be the luckiest son of a gun on the planet.”
I chuckled. “Perhaps both.” I told Jerry about the chart we’d seen at Leopold’s, the one that outlined the changeover times of vampires who’d been given M.M. SAMPLE #25.
“So, let me see if I’m following you. Vampires under five hundred took about one to two months to change. Five hundred to a thousand, the change took roughly two to four weeks. And vamps over a thousand changed instantly.”
“That’s right,” I said. “These times are how long it took vamps to change from the serum that had a high concentration of my blood, remember. This is why we warned you that your changeover would take some time. You’ll probably change faster than Robert, though, since you’re a little older than him.”
“So, how long has it taken Robert to change back?”
“A few months. As Robert keeps reminding me, this whole changeover business isn’t an exact science.”
“Well, then there it is,” Jerry said. “The amount of time it takes a new mortal to change back into a vampire might correlate to how long it takes them to change into a human.”
“Eh?” I said, my brain still a little jumbled from emotional trauma.
“What I mean is this: The longer it takes a vampire to initially change from your blood, the longer they stay human.”
I processed what Jerry was saying. “It’s confusing, but why not? Vampires are supernatural creatures, so it’s not surprising that anything related to them medically would have magical properties. Of course, we’re going off what we’ve seen with just Robert. It could be different for you.”
“Does this mean that I’ll become vampire again?”
“It appears so. Sorry Jerry . . .”
“Imagine that! The effect of your blood is fleeting, and the VGO want to kill you,” Jerry said incredulously. “But Leopold is the real danger. Turns out that he’s the only one on the planet with a permanent cure to vampirism.”
“You don’t say,” I muttered, deep in thought.
“Oh no! Have I offended you? There I go, running my mouth again!”
“No, it’s not that. It’s . . . I could kiss you!” I rose up on my tiptoes and did just that, planting my lips firmly on Jerry’s.
Jerry was bewildered. “What have I done?”
“You have given me the best idea. And with it, I just might be able to save my life.”
20
Robert was aghast when I shared my plan with him. He sputtered, “I’m sorry, you want to do what?”
Jerry put in his two cents worth. “Girl, I told you it was crazy.” He shook his head and made a mm-mm-mph sound.
“I want to turn myself in to the VGO,” I declared. “I don’t think they’ll kill me once they hear what I have to offer.”
“You can’t be certain of that,” Robert said. “I won’t have you putting your life in danger on some whim.”
Jerry patted my hand. “I’m sorry, sugar, but I have to agree with Robert on this one.”
“I appreciate your concern, guys, but hear me out. Yes, we can’t be positive that the VGO won’t kill me the moment I approach. But, guess what? They’re trying to kill me anyway.” I folded my arms, defiant. I was done having others making my choices. “And, I’m sorry, Robert, but whether or not I go off on a whim is not for you to decide. I’ve made up my mind.”
Robert hugged me against his immaculate chest. Absolutely no sign that he’d ever been stabbed existed. Surprised, I jerked my head back. I’d gotten used to the thumping of his heartbeat and the warmth of his skin. Now it was silent and icy. “I don’t want to lose you, Mercy,” he whispered.
Jerry tactfully made an excuse to return to his room, obviously wanting to give us some privacy. He was scheduled to fly back to San Francisco in a few hours, so I made him promise to come and say goodbye before he left.
“Robert, we can’t stay on the run forever,” I said after Jerry was gone. “How long did it take the VGO to find us all the way out here?”
“Yes, but—”
I placed my index finger over his lips. “There is no but. I’m done looking over my shoulder. No more. And I’m over vampires trying to murder me. First it was Michael, then his creepy goon in the warehouse, and now it’s the VGO. I wouldn’t take my life with you back for the world, Robert, and I love vampires . . . for the most part. But I want us to have some semblance of a normal existence.”
“I understand.”
“Now, the issues surrounding my impending old age we’ll have to sort out later. Maybe we can find a way to turn me vampire in the future. Nothing is set on stone. But this business with the VGO? This I can at least attempt to rectify. I refuse to continue living my life cowered away in hiding because, frankly, it isn’t a life at all. I want my life back—our home, Liz, our freedom. I have to at least try.”
Robert sighed. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Yes, okay. We will go to the VGO headquarters.”
“We?”
“You didn’t think you were going without me, did you?�
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A few miles outside of Edinburgh, Robert and I arrived at an ancient structure that was as tall as it was wide—and it was very, very wide. I already knew that the VGO headquarters were located in Scotland, of course, but what I hadn’t known was that they operated from a castle.
Like Leopold’s lab, I could feel eyes upon us as soon as we stepped foot onto the property. Unlike the lab, no guard met us, so I assumed the vampires were either on the roof or hiding in treetops. I was too frightened to look up. They allowed us to walk right through the front door, marked with an unassuming name: D&B Incorporated. A complete front, particularly because it was approaching midnight and the place was lit up like it was noontime. The front door was unlocked.
“You swear that you’re going to let me do all the talking?” I asked Robert.
“I swear,” Robert promised. “This is your show.”
The receptionist, a vampire, seemed to be expecting us. Her eyes widened at the sight of Robert, but she got a hold of herself in an instant. Perhaps she’d been expecting two humans and had been stunned to see only one accompanied by a newly reinstated vamp.
The receptionist held up a finger as we approached. She wouldn’t look at us directly, which I took as a bad sign. You wouldn’t want to grow attached to a lamb about to go to slaughter, which was precisely what I felt like.
“Just a moment,” the receptionist said, and then she snatched up the phone on her desk. She muttered in hushed tones that I couldn’t quite make out. My hope was that she wasn’t saying something along the lines of, “You may now come down and kill the idiot who was stupid enough to turn herself in.”
I’d never been inside an actual castle before. The air was cool, moist, and unsettling. The VGO had kept up with the general medieval theme when decorating: armored figures in every corner, shiny weapons bolted to the walls, clunky metal candelabras, unattractive burgundy rugs. I was curious about what the VGO claimed D&B to be. Interior design for palace dwellers? Antique restoration? I almost asked, but then I remembered that I was there to save my life, not make chitchat with the unfriendly vampire receptionist.