Twice Bitten

by Aiden James

  “He talks about you all the time,” said Mercel, quietly.

  I watched him glance toward the spot where Chanson and Raquel stood, and where Franz, Armando, and Garvan had also gathered. They suddenly all turned toward me. It gave me the queerest sense of déjà vu…me talking about Racco and someone in my vampire entourage watching me with disdain. Only this time, he wasn’t here, and my companions’ reactions were tepid smiles instead of the outright scorn I endured at Racco’s castle in the Pyrenees.

  “What kind of things does he say?” I tried to seem as coy as possible while my heart began to race.

  “I think you know,” he whispered harshly, after casting a more wary glance toward the five vampires entrusted to watch over me. I didn’t have to follow his eyes to know they all were attempting to listen in on us, as they continued to watch our interaction.

  “I honestly can’t say if I do know or not. He’s always so hard to figure—”

  “He loves you!” Mercel trembled in anger. I wondered if this was because his master suffered so, or was it more the fact that Mercel hated being placed in this position as a delivery boy with so many immortals that eyed him hungrily without Racco nearby to offer protection. “He doesn’t care that you bear another’s child, and you can sneak away with us—”

  “Bartender, perhaps you wouldn’t mind adding a small smidgen of alcohol to my Type O tonight?”

  Gustav suddenly appeared next to me, and Mercel clammed up completely. He nodded emphatically to Gustav and bowed away as he sought to open another bottle of wine, only this one was a chardonnay.

  “You look ravishing tonight, Txema!” Gustav said to me, while Mercel poured a small amount of wine into a thimble-sized container.

  “It’s good to see you, too, Gustav.” I forced a smile while praying there would be no ill will against Mercel. He was merely an unwitting messenger for Racco. I needed to come up with an effective distraction quick. “I thank you so much for putting this event together tonight—it means the world to me!”

  He now eyed me as curiously as Mercel had a short while earlier. Only in this case, my instincts told me that I didn’t need to know any secret this lord of immortals carried with him. At least he wasn’t wearing the garish papal outfits he favored in France, or anything like the golden robe he wore when he addressed this same crowd shortly after our arrival at the palace in November. Dressed in the sort of tux and cape that Kazikli preferred, and sans any cap at all, he looked much younger, sporting light brown hair that was pulled back in a long ponytail I never knew existed. Only his porcelain white skin gave him away as an extremely old vampire, although flushed slightly pink. At least Mercel’s blood was safe…for now.

  “You are quite welcome!” Gustav’s eyes seemed to deepen in their bluish gold swirl of color. I took that as a good sign, and silently prayed I was right. “It’s the least we could do since all of us are aware this hasn’t been an easy transition for you, and our original destination would have been no worse than Le chateau de douleur. Perhaps it will help you forget the unpleasantness from earlier today. Hmmm?”

  I knew in my heart I’d never forget what happened. The image of the two young children screaming in terror after what just happened to their mother would stay with me in detail for as long as I walked the earth. But, hoping that my thoughts were a jumbled morass for Gustav to navigate through, I continued with my agreeable side.

  “Yes, I believe it will help,” I said. He looked away briefly, allowing Mercel to pour the thimble-sized cup into his half-full goblet of blood. When he looked back at me, I sought to close the deal…to place an air-tight seal on an expert ‘thought misdirection’ while somewhere deeper in my mind I was seriously debating Mercel’s offer of escape. “I look forward to a more permanent home deeper in the Himalayas, like what Huangtian Dadi mentioned last month. Do we know yet when that will happen?”

  He seemed impressed, and at first I thought it was because I had taken a keen interest in where we’d end up when our present stay ended. But then I remembered the same look when he watched Chanson rebuke Racco back in France, the night of my Relance de sang.

  He either was impressed with my answer’s astuteness, or my convoluted sidetrack to distract him from attempting to peer deeper inside my psyche. Either possibility added up to the same thing: a big stinky pile of bullshit.

  “You’ll know the answer to that question soon enough, I assure you, Txema.”

  Coolly delivered response, and then he paused to look at Mercel again, who had not looked up since he finished pouring the alcohol into the vampire king’s goblet. Gustav let out a slight snicker and then was gone. His speed of movement is beyond a blur, which I found strangely comforting. The others always left a trace, which my eyes would try to follow in vain. That’s irritating.

  “We’ll talk later,” I whispered to Mercel. He nodded ever so slightly that he heard me.

  Carrying a plate loaded with food, I moved back toward the others, hoping to find a place to sit and eat. At the moment, they were all having a great time dancing and twirling in the air to an old Irish folksong played by two fiddler vampires and another playing what looked like a silver flute. The music was beautiful, although I looked for smoke to rise from the flute player’s hands, which it never did.

  Suddenly another vampire stepped in front of me, blocking my path to the others. I recognized this one as one of the more lecherous voyeurs who continuously ‘touched’ himself during my Relance de sang, daring to come the closest to where he could clearly see Peter Worley slamming me in my nether region while my naked cousin, Chanson, hung on to my neck with her fangs. Fortunately, I blacked out before I saw what became of this other vamp’s self-pleasuring.

  But, I never forgot the disdain he eyed me with then, which seemed even worse in his pompous leer now.

  “So, what have we here?” he hissed, as he drew ever closer, the smell of partially digested blood on his breath and his French accent slurred as if he were drunk. Like most of the hostile looks I’d received that night, his eyes were drawn to my birthmark. I could almost feel his lurid fantasies that involved feasting violently upon my exposed neck. “Because of you and your kind, everything we had enjoyed went to hell back in our homeland, and now you have angered our hosts because you didn’t like what happened to some Asian slut blood-sack?”

  I’m not sure if I even blinked, staring at this soulless idiot while my lower lip quivered. Hurt and seriously pissed. I didn’t know what to say to him, which seemed to anger him more. Everything after that moved very fast, and if I had been alone with this fiend, I’d not be typing any of this now.

  In a split second, his hand came toward me, sharp fingernails flayed out like one big ninja star. I couldn’t move, but as it turned out, I didn’t have to. Garvan came out of nowhere and removed me from harm’s way, taking my goblet of fake wine in his hand without spilling more than a few drops. My dinner, however, went everywhere.

  As for my attacker…he was on his knees, and at first I thought that Franz and Armando held him fast. But neither one touched him. They merely guarded the path to me. Another vampire held him down, with the edge of a long, sharp blade poised against the prone vampire’s neck. The blade glistened in the glow of the holiday lights as the stronger vampire pushed the blade into the other’s skin, drawing a thin line of blood.

  It was Kazikli. He looked up at me with a wan smile on his face, as if he genuinely despised having to use brute force, but hated what had created this situation even more.

  “I will let you up, and then you will leave…you will leave this palace and you will never come back,” he told the other vampire. “Otherwise, you will find your head lying next to your body, and the last thing you’ll ever experience is the horror of watching your entire essence disintegrate into a ball of flames. Am I clear?”

  He pushed the blade, which protruded from the edge of his cane, deeper into the vampire’s skin when at first there was no response. That’s all it took to get this other vam
pire to acknowledge Kazikli’s warning, and he did so with an emphatic nod while a pained whine escaped his throat.

  “Very good. Make sure I never see you again, and that means at any time or in any place. Otherwise, you will die, and before that, you will suffer horribly!”

  Kazikli emphasized this last part with a menacing hiss in his voice. Then he lifted the vampire to his feet and turned him over to Franz and Armando to shove outside. As they approached the door, Gustav suddenly accosted them, and the vampire cowered in further fear. It made me wonder if the undead could get intoxicated on something like blood, since no way in hell would a sane and sober member of Gustav’s ensemble of vampires act inappropriately in his presence. The chance of ostracism or death would be too great a risk.

  You might think that after such an unpleasant experience the night was ruined. I know I did…but within a minute of this asshole leaving, the party was back in full force. The music and celebration among the rest of the vampires seemed even more fervent with joy than it previously had been—as if they wanted to make certain nothing else happened to fuck up this Christmas Eve party.

  Even the mess made when my food went flying into the air had been cleaned up, and Garvan soon walked me to a small table where he and I could sit and visit. Mercel brought another serving of roast and vegetables, and an even bigger helping of raspberry chocolate cheesecake.

  “Sorry for the unpleasantness,” said Garvan. “Like I told you before, they don’t all hate you. Most of them are deeply concerned about what happens to you and your baby to be, Txema. But don’t ever venture outside alone again—at any time. I hope you understand that from here on out it will be far too dangerous, and with so much to lose. Others will be waiting for you to slip up.”

  “And, then what?”

  I hated coming across so flippantly, but my blood sugar had dropped to where my extremities were going numb, and my right hand had begun to shake. I didn’t wait for an answer, and dug into my food ravenously. It tasted fantastic, and I resented the fact my body wouldn’t let me savor this moment. I’m sure I looked like an animal in my gorgeous gown, only one step away from eating with my hands instead of the delicate cutlery Mercel had provided.

  Garvan smirked sadly and shrugged his shoulders.

  “I won’t be able to protect you. None of us will be able to do a damned thing…. I’ll be left to cry tears of blood whenever I think of you. Every day. Until eventually sorrow turns to anger and then rage…as the last of our kind becomes extinct, and the unchallenged reign of Ralu begins.”

  Chapter 7

  I’m sure most folks would assume after such a statement that the night would’ve become a complete bust for me. It almost did. Luckily, Garvan lightened up after sharing the biggest glimpse into his soul that I’d seen up until then. The very things he fears as an ancient vampire are not that different from those of us still human. All of my entourage likely fears the same things, and it would not surprise me if Gustav himself has similar misgivings.

  Contrary to what some of my reviewers said of my first installment—the journal that became “The Vampires’ Last Lover”—I’m not a heartless, self-centered, and shallow bitch. I may very well act like these qualities now and then, but, on the inside, none of them define me. That night I didn’t delve into the deeper meanings of Garvan’s words to me. But I did put forth an extra effort to let him know that I cared deeply about him…and in ways that could mean much more between us down the road, once my child safely entered the world.

  That seemed to be enough for him. It at least lifted his countenance to where he wanted to dance and play like the other jovial vamps having fun on the dance floor. We had a blast dancing together, and along with our immediate friends too. Dancing with vampires is a really different experience, since several times I was sent airborne by one—Garvan or Armando—and then caught gently by Franz or Chanson. And, just like with the girls I used to dance with in the clubs back in Richmond and Knoxville, Raquel, Tyreen, and Chanson danced with me sans the guys. I even danced the ‘Charleston’ with Armando where we nearly crashed into Nora and Kazikli. At least we had fun laughing about it.

  Everything was strange in that way. But it was such a blast!

  We partied well into the night, but by 3:00 a.m. our host’s security guards moved in to stop the festivities. Gustav stood before us, along with Huangtian Dadi and Xuanxang—the only time I saw either of them that night. After a brief Christmas benediction, Gustav dismissed us all.

  The air outside seemed colder on the way back to our bedchamber, but it felt plenty warm once we were ascending the stairs to our floor. The door to the room had been repaired and the window had also been effectively boarded up, so the frigid air from outside could no longer reach us. The comforting soft hum and warm air from the third floor’s hidden furnace greeted us through the vents outside the room.

  It was even warmer inside the room. After I changed out of the lovely evening wardrobe provided to me by my vampire friends, I crawled under my bed’s covers. I felt more content than I had since I encountered my first vampire—Garvan—in my dorm room back in Tennessee in early November.

  “We will always take care of you, Txema,” said Chanson, tenderly. “What happened yesterday won’t ever happen again if you’ll stay within the reach of our protection. Merry Christmas to you, and know that we’ll always love you as our own.”

  She and the others stood around my bed. Not creepy, but more like guardian angels watching over me. I wondered briefly if her admonishment was directed at my earlier conversation with Mercel that night. However, exhaustion had already gotten the better of me, and my conscious awareness began to fade out.

  “Merry Christmas to you, too, Chanson…and to you Garvan, Tyreen, Armando, and…Raquel. I love all of you, too….”

  As I exited into the world of dreams from the one filled with vampires, I heard each of them echo my Merry Christmas wish followed by a faint ‘we love you, Txema!’

  I slept soundly and didn’t awaken until mid afternoon, Christmas Day.

  ***

  For some reason, the Himalayan world seemed different to me, upon rising from my bed that afternoon. All sorts of possibilities seemed at my fingertips, and I felt a sense of empowerment. The decision was mine to get the hell out of that place if I wanted to bad enough…or stay with my vampire friends. My biggest fantasy was that I envisioned flying back to Europe with Franz and Mercel, and then being whisked away to Milan to meet with Racco and confront him for being such a fucking coward.

  That was definitely a fantasy. Here’s what reality had in store for me that afternoon.

  After getting dressed for the day, I hurried downstairs. By then, the late afternoon sun was already creeping down upon the higher peaks, and it would be dark within an hour. Not enough time to safely search the entire complex for Mercel, I assumed my worst-case scenario was to await Franz’s arousal from his daytime vamp-nap and then ask him discreetly to take me to Mercel.

  I felt certain that Mercel wasn’t staying in the same building as me. If I was going to find him, I needed to do it quickly. No way in hell would the nervous Frenchman venture outside without Franz or someone else from Racco’s staff accompanying him. It wouldn’t have surprised me if Mercel sought further protection inside Franz’s casket until dusk!

  On the odd chance I might miss seeing either one, I skipped the rice and poultry meal that had been set out for me. Knowing I had less than half an hour to search the other buildings before dusk, I set out in earnest to find Mercel.

  He wasn’t inside the other buildings, where the empty echoes from my calls to him went unanswered. Still, I didn’t panic. I searched around the perimeter of the complex, being careful not to come too close to Huangtian Dadi’s personal chambers. I heard a menacing growl from a darkened alcove just inside the main gate to his private realm.

  I became more and more convinced that my original assumption was mistaken, and that the pair was hiding someplace inside the main building.
Until I found the spot where Racco’s helicopter recently sat. The chopper bar tracks and footprints in the snow had already started to melt, which told me that it had been gone for several hours.

  Damn it—they left already??!!

  Incredible despair rushed over me, despite the fact there were those who truly cared about me, like my immediate friends upstairs. But in that moment of truth, I wanted real human companionship over the ‘almost’ version offered by my vampire companions.

  I cried as I prepared to step back inside the main palace building. All the while I couldn’t ignore the feeling I was being followed, watched and studied by someone…or something. The feeling was unquestionably predatory. It stayed strong until I was safely inside the main palace again.

  I went back upstairs and waited for Chanson to awaken, since she was normally first among the five each day. Tyreen was usually the last to awaken, as I’m sure she still needs the most rest to ensure she grows up to be a healthy and successful vampire. Yes, that’s me being cynical yet again. The rest of the group wakes up randomly, and I knew I wouldn’t have long to speak with my main protector in private.

  “So Franz did leave last night after all?” said Chanson, once she cleared the blood-shot redness from her eyes. Normally she bounces right up, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.

  “Yes, he did, and Mercel and the rest of Racco’s staff are gone, too!” I was unable to mask my disappointment.

  “Oh, dearest Txema…you mustn’t stress about this. When the time is right, you will see them all again. I swear!”

  She came over to where I sat, on the edge of my bed, and wrapped her arms around me. I wanted to cry more about it, but I felt so angry I wouldn’t let it out.

  “I’m not so sure it will ever happen…I felt someone watching me outside. I’m feeling more and more that I am not welcome here! It gets worse every day!!”

  “Txema, that’s why you mustn’t venture outside—ever!” Chanson scolded me, and I could tell she was trying to hold back her anger. “Didn’t you listen to what I told you last night?”