Invierea

by Bruce T. Jones

  With her head securely cradled in Gabrielle’s lap as the minutes passed, Dee’s hysterical crying began to wane. I excused myself and asked Phillip to follow.

  We walked into the bedroom, Phillip trailing closely behind, inspecting my head.

  “God Brian, how in the hell are you even alive?”

  “Haven’t you heard, Phillip? Short of cutting my head off or driving a stake through my heart, I am fucking immortal.”

  “Look, I don’t know if there is ever going to be a good time to bring this up, but there’s some shit going down that is going to require damage control beyond anything I can provide. Is there anyone I can call?”

  I sighed. I did not give a shit about damage control. I was ready to die, my reason for living having died with Sam. “What is it, Phillip?” My tone was terse as I considered the task for my final few days.

  “Okay, I have sources all over this. Stuff that would make unbelievable headlines for a special edition in the morning. First of all, the shooter, the cops are way freaked out by his COD. Secondly, they have you on a surveillance video. The story we received was you appeared as a flash or even a glitch on the tape, until they played the video in slow motion. Want to talk about freaked out? They can’t even begin to estimate how fast you were moving. And as if that were not enough, another video has your ass launching up the wall of the apartment like some kind of rocket.”

  “I really do not care if they know about me now, Phil. Fuck ’em all. You have everything you need to run a great story, all the way back to New Orleans. Go for it, man. It will make you an immortal in the publishing world.”

  “Fuck that, Brian,” Phillip said indignantly.

  “Nicholas.” Phillip had never taken to my true name, but instead chose to call me by the only name he had known, up until a year ago. “Please use my real name.”

  “Nicholas? Whatever. You need to get off your pity party for now. There are people that count on you, Gabrielle for starters, whose life stands to get FUBARed if you don’t make things right. She’s got a life that depends on your little secret, and if you don’t fix this, she’s gonna get fucked. Whatever you are planning to do with yourself, I can’t change. But make no mistake, if you leave her exposed, they will crucify her. You know they will.”

  “Phillip, I am most certain you can manage to take care of Gabrielle’s future with what I am leaving behind.”

  “I already told you, this is over my head. They have seen your face. They may know what you are, or at least have some sort of idea by now. For all we know, they might be on the way here. I’m gonna need your help putting it right,” Phillip implored. “Come on, man, Gabrielle loves you. Sam would not have let you bail like this.”

  Phillip was right. Sam would have put her foot up my ass already. “How soon can you have the helicopter here?”

  Phillip checked his watch. “Thirty minutes.”

  “Do it. I need to get down to Washington, tonight. There is a man who can make this all go away.” The very man I intended to kill might have earned a suspended sentence, until he cleaned up the bullshit mess he made.

  Phillip dialed his phone and barked a few brief instructions to the voice on the other end. “It’s on the way. So what next?”

  “You guys get the hell out of here, just in case the cops show up. I may not be back tonight, depending on the hour.” I turned on the shower water and began to strip. “Bag this stuff up,” I ordered as I tossed my clothes out of the bathroom to Phillip. “Get someone in here tonight to clean this place top to bottom. Wipe the prints clean. Anything with blood, pitch it. Have Gabby stay in her apartment downstairs, or take her to your place, until we know everything’s cool. With any luck, I can plug the damage before the cops show up.”

  “Roger that.” Phillip’s phone vibrated, drawing his attention to an incoming text. He stuck his head in the bathroom. His eyes were instantly drawn to my back where the wound had yet to heal from the first shot. “God Brian, how bad does it hurt?”

  “It hurts like a bitch, only difference … I don’t get to die like everyone else.”

  “Shit,” he exclaimed. “Sam’s body has not shown up at the morgue yet. And they are unable to locate the ambulance.”

  “Doughnut break or wrong morgue I would guess. Whatever, let me know when they find her,” I said as I stepped into the shower and closed the door. In the confines of the shower, I watched as pools of blood spiraled down the drain; the last traces of Samantha I would ever know.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  THE AMBULANCE PULLED up to the corner of Thompson and Houston. “Stop here,” Angelique willed the driver. “David, if you want to live beyond tonight, you will never repeat any of what you have seen, do you understand?”

  “Yes,” he replied. The sheer force of Angelique’s demand would become a commandment etched in David’s subconscious.

  “Samantha! Get up,” Angelique ordered.

  Dazed and confused, Samantha rose.

  “We need to leave now.” Angelique took Samantha’s hand and led her from the ambulance. Sam was oblivious to the fact her shirt was torn open and her breast partially exposed.

  “Wait.” David took off his EMT jacket and put it over Samantha’s shoulders. He snapped two of the buttons, covering her incision and breast, which was rapidly healing and no longer exposing her heart “We can’t have you running all over the city like that.”

  Appreciative of the gesture, Angelique gave David a kiss on the cheek. “Thank you.”

  Angelique took Samantha by the arm and led her into the village, toward her home. Samantha struggled to walk, the instability of her legs caused by the traumatic changes to her body. “Where are you taking me?” she asked.

  “I am taking you to my home.” Guiding Sam with almost every step, she thought about the lost love in her life. Only an hour ago in his moment of desperation, Nick’s angst pierced her like an arrow; his cries for help so powerful, as if she were there beside him. Her awareness of Nick’s pain was so acute, to experience his undying love for this woman, after all that had transpired with the Tepes family, she knew she could not allow Samantha to perish. Arriving at the crime scene, she sensed the presence of her ancestors, coercing her to do the right thing, regardless of her feelings. Ancestors or not, she owed it to Nicholas for all the havoc she had precipitated in his life.

  After walking in silence for a block, Sam asked weakly, “Who are you?”

  “Save your strength. Once we are safely inside I will tell you everything.

  Sam felt so strange. The colors of the night, vivid and renewed. The scent of the city had changed, each odor no longer a conglomeration of disharmonious smells. Each tree she passed had a unique fragrance. Pedestrians a block away had their own individual redolence. The stain on the sidewalk was the remnants of pumpkin ice cream. Suddenly, overwhelmed by the onslaught of sensory perception, Samantha’s stomach convulsed, and she vomited.

  Angelique shook her head in amusement. “I hope you are almost done with that. We will be in my apartment soon.”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t know what is wrong with me. My stomach is quite queasy and I feel as if my skin is burning up. I think I must be coming down with something. Maybe I should go home.”

  “I do not think that would be wise,” Angelique said, as she held the door open for Sam. The elevator ride was silent, Angelique contemplating her next move and Samantha trying to get a handle on the lapse in her memory. As Angelique unlocked the door she looked back to Samantha. “Do you remember anything of tonight?”

  Sam struggled for the answer. The time spent dead had done its damage, but the process of rejuvenation was well underway.

  “I was …” Sam began, but her words stalled as she lost her direction. “I’m sorry, but what did you say your name was?”

  Unsure of Samantha’s reaction Angelique hesitated, but she knew the truth would soon be out. “My name is Angelique.”

  “Do I know you?”

  “Indirectly, you do.�
�

  Sam thought in silence as pieces of her memory returned like bits of a jigsaw puzzle.

  “I was walking with Nick. I remember Barbados.” Blankly, Samantha rubbed the phantom pain in her chest where the bullet had passed through. “The next thing I remember is throwing up outside.”

  “Samantha, what I am about to tell you might seem quite impossible, but trust me, considering the events of the past few years … well you will understand.” Angelique unbuttoned the paramedic’s jacket.

  Slightly uncomfortable being undressed by a strange woman, Samantha nervously allowed Angelique to continue. She looked down at the state of her shirt, missing bra and disfigured chest and moaned. “Oh God.”

  Angelique traced her fingers across the wound. “This is nothing. It will heal within days.”

  Appalled by the scar that remained, Samantha pulled Angelique’s fingers away. Unaware of just how bad the scar had been, her hands trembled as she inspected the wound.

  “You were walking with Nick,” Angelique began. “You were shot first, then Nick. But bullets do not harm our kind. You on the other hand were not so lucky. You died instantly.”

  Samantha had pretty much lost most of her glowing skin color with the transformation occurring, but what little was left departed with all haste as Samantha began to faint.

  Catching her mid-fall, Angelique led her to the couch and laid her down.

  Sam studied Angelique’s features as she gradually regained her composure. “You are Angelique … from New Orleans, aren’t you?”

  With an air of pride, Angelique replied, “I am.”

  “Where is Nick?” With a tinge of panic in her voice, Samantha recoiled from Angelique.

  “After you were killed, he was shot several times while attempting to revive you. In his desperation, he attempted the one thing he thought might save you: the curse of the vampire.

  “Where is he?” Sam asked urgently, sensing the worst may have befallen him.

  “For the time being, all I know is that he is safe. But in his rage he was very careless. He savagely executed the gunman that shot you and potentially exposed our race to the world.”

  “Our race?” Angelique’s words resonated as Samantha’s brain assimilated the many fragments of information beginning to return. “You said I died, how am I here?”

  “Nicholas has been a vampire for less than two years. Although he possesses great power, he is ignorant to the ancient ways of our people. I have been a vampire for over three centuries. I know many dark secrets from our past he has yet to learn. I resurrected you from the realm of the dead Samantha, into the life of the undead. You are as they say in Romanian, înviat. You are now one of us.”

  The words passing from Angelique did not register initially. What she had wanted most from Nick, but was never given, was suddenly hers from the woman she feared the most. She looked at her hands, then pulled her shirt open again. In the few minutes that passed, the wound had healed considerably more.

  “It will soon be gone,” Angelique assured Samantha as she touched her hand.

  “I am having a difficult time believing this is anything but a dream.”

  “This is no dream,” Angelique sat down on the edge of the couch beside Samantha and brushed her finger over Samantha’s lips before gently parting them. She took Samantha’s hand and guided her fingers lightly over the razor sharp fangs. Startled by the discovery, Samantha flinched back into the couch. Angelique smiled as she pulled Samantha’s fingers away from her mouth and then guided the trembling hand into her own mouth.

  Samantha stroked the fang, exploring its glossy and honed profile. Pricking the tip, Samantha shuttered with trepidation.

  Angelique withdrew Sam’s fingers and kissed her hand sensing her fear. “It is quite alright. In short time you will feel at home with our ways.”

  Rising from the couch, aware of Angelique’s peculiarly strong sensual prowess, Samantha decided the methodology deserved a little separation.

  Angelique honed in on Sam’s uneasiness. “It is alright Samantha. You will find there are many advantages to being a vampire. Many new experiences, some of a more passionate nature.”

  “No thank you. I am fine just like I am,” Sam said nervously. “Dead or undead, but strictly straight, I like men just fine, thank you,” she continued awkwardly. “Nick, I like Nick.”

  Angelique laughed at Samantha’s awkwardness. “You are too sweet. I was just toying with you.”

  Samantha looked at Angelique with cautionary eyes, uncertain of her sincerity.

  “I apologize. I cannot remember what it was like for me. It was so long ago. But I am sure you have questions. I will get us a couple of drinks, then we can talk. I will tell you everything you want to know.” Angelique disappeared into the kitchen. Within a minute, she reappeared with two half filled wine glasses.

  Samantha took the glass and brought it to her lips. The strange aroma warned her it was not wine. “This is blood?”

  “Naturally, what else would you have us drink?”

  “I feel like I should talk to Nick before I do this.”

  Samantha’s reluctance was not entirely unexpected, so Angelique took a sip to set an example. “What have you to fear?”

  “My humanity,” Samantha quipped.

  Not wanting to force the issue, Angelique smiled and chose an alternate tactic. “So Gabrielle is here, in New York.”

  “Yes she is.”

  “And the two of you? Are you friends?” Angelique asked, curious of the relationship.

  “Very good friends,” Sam added proudly.

  “So you have no fear of her?”

  “She has never made me feel uncomfortable, so no.”

  “Then I hope you will allow me to be a friend as well, Samantha,” The two shared a quaint smile, before Angelique took another sip. Reflecting on bygone memories of New Orleans Angelique sighed. “Gabrielle never wanted any of this, and once she was turned, she clung to the hope, my hope, the hopes of Nicholas’s father, to return to the path of the righteous one day. Initially, she abstained from blood drinking, praying the curse would be lifted. But all it did was make her frail. And so she shared in the vulnerabilities of our race, but none of our strength. In vain, she kept her vigil, for almost two hundred years. So tell me, does she still refrain from human blood?”

  “No, she found it impossible to survive on the outside without proper nourishment. But like Nick, she is vigilant over her consumption, and would never take a live victim.”

  “And the blood, it makes her stronger?” Angelique hoped the logical sequence would encourage Samantha to partake in the blood that would expedite the healing process. “You my dear are weak. You are vulnerable. If you do not trust me, then do not drink. I will not be offended. But make no mistake, your ability to protect yourself is far from developed, and like Gabrielle so many years ago, you are prone to an entire new set of dangers, like the sunrise for example. You are easy prey for hunters.”

  “Hunters?”

  “Men are predatory in nature, particularly these men of New York. They feel they are superior, with the need to conquer women, by any means. Some use force, some use drugs, and some just use good old fashion suave. For the most part, I find them mostly uncivilized and distasteful.”

  Sam looked down at the burgundy beverage in her glass. She was a vampire now. It was time she develop the ability to act like one. She put the glass to her lips and slowly tipped the crystal back. Her intentions were to have just a sip, but the need deep within her would not allow her to stop, until all of the thick rich blood had been drained from the glass.

  “It is good, yes?” Angelique asked, as she witnessed Samantha’s first call to blood. She knew what her reaction would be, before she even picked up the glass and where this unquenchable thirst would lead, if not tamed.

  “I want more,” Samantha stated firmly.

  “No Samantha. Our race is like that of sharks. A shark only knows to swim, and to eat. They have no level
of self-control. A vampire can be a most dangerous creature. For like the shark, all they do is feed on the weak. If you do not learn to control your instinctive urges, and quickly, you will become hunted, as your ancestors were.”

  “My ancestors?”

  “You are a vampire, all that have come before are now your family. You will find the spirits of your ancestors guiding you from time to time.

  “But if we are all family, why did Nicholas kill the others?”

  Thinking back to the memories of her fallen sisters, Angelique frowned. “Nicholas did not know his heritage, and was driven by revenge and righteousness. But you see, once he began to understand his place, he could not bring himself to destroy his own kind.”

  “He did kill Celine, in Miami, after … you know.”

  “Celine was as devious and power hungry as her master. I am sure Nicholas’s motivations were in proper accordance with his father’s ways, as they were when he killed Monique. Like any family, there is always an element whose needs supplant the common good of us all. These rogues will always be a threat to our survival.”

  Emergency lights illuminated the street outside the apartment. Angelique moved to the window and observed a police cruiser passing slowly below. “They are looking for us Samantha.”

  “Who is?”

  Angelique smiled broadly. “I think the authorities might want their victim’s body back.”

  “Victim’s body?”

  “Samantha, less than an hour ago, you were the innocent victim in a brutal murder. A young paramedic witnessed your resurrection from the dead. I am sure the police are not happy with the fact your body is missing. I think it would be prudent for us to leave as soon as permissible, and go to your home. I do not want to bring any trouble to my door.”

  “The baby.”

  “Yes, the baby.” Angelique’s confirmation was buffered with an air of surprise.

  “Can I see your son?”

  “I see he has told you.” Angelique huffed at the unexpected and awkward request. “Samantha …”