Chronicles of an Extraordinary Ordinary Life

by Aurélie Venem

  He stood up too. The silence that surrounded us oppressed me more than if he had put his hands around my throat to strangle me. I couldn’t look at him, but I felt him watching me.

  “I beg you, let me go home,” I ended up saying, pathetically.

  I expected to be attacked for my outburst; instead, he answered me calmly.

  “I told you, you cannot go back. You no longer have a home. You have to stay with me if you want to live.”

  His tone gave me no choice but to look up at him. Again, I thought I saw pain in his eyes.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Why do you think I interrogated you about your identity rather than searching through your bag?”

  I frowned and thought. The last time that I had my bag . . . good grief, it was when the big blond vampire had thrown me at Velvet Voice.

  I looked at him again in horror.

  “I see that you understand now,” he said to me. “You were unconscious all night and all day. He had time to go to your house with some of his men to learn more about you. They’ll want to know what you were doing in that alley, and if you have anything to do with me and my business there. If you go back to your house and they are still there, they will torture you for more information, and before they finally finish you off, they’ll make you regret you were ever born.”

  My legs were trembling so badly that soon they wouldn’t be able to support my weight. I could barely breathe.

  “But . . . I was only there by accident.”

  “No matter. If they cannot find out anything, they will at least have you to feast on if you go home.” He sighed. “You can refuse to work for a monster, but you really have no choice.”

  I suddenly felt very sick. With great effort, I said, “Bath . . . room.”

  “On your left as you leave the room, third door.”

  I ran out of the room and made it to the bathroom just in time. I vomited everything that I could into the toilet bowl, all while still crying at the thought of what was waiting for me if I returned home, or if I accepted Velvet Voice’s offer. When I was finished, I somehow managed to freshen myself up.

  But that was the most I could do. My mind no longer had the capacity to absorb all this, so it decided to take a break, and I fainted.

  The bathroom floor was not as hard and cold as I was expecting when I woke up. In fact, it was rather comfortable down there. But when I opened my eyes, I saw that I was in the parlor again, stretched out on a long sofa slipcovered in a soft beige cloth.

  “Where are you?” I croaked.

  “I am here.”

  He walked across the room, from the fireplace to the armchair that was facing me, and sat down. There was a glass of water on the small table between us. I sat up with difficulty and took a swig. I laughed nervously as I set the glass back down.

  “Please enlighten me as to what you find so funny,” he said.

  “I was just telling myself that I am so pitiful and useless that you must already regret not putting me out of my misery. Sorry, but I think that you’ve picked the wrong person.”

  “I do not think so.”

  His mysterious tone made me wonder what he was implying. But I didn’t need the headache that thought would give me. On that note . . .

  “By the way, what did you do to me? I was hit on the head, back in the alley. I remember the blood on my face. When I woke up, I checked for damage, but there was nothing there.”

  “I healed you with my blood.”

  “Your blood?”

  “Vampire blood has curative properties. It is very powerful when swallowed, but we can also apply it to small wounds to make them disappear.”

  I gagged. “You made me drink your blood?”

  “That was not necessary. Your head wound was only superficial, even though it was bleeding profusely.”

  I sighed with relief, but I couldn’t stop myself from asking, “Would I have become a vampire if you had?”

  His face showed irritation, and there was a far-off look in his eyes, as if he were recalling bad memories.

  “No. I must first empty you of your blood. And it is a, ahem, very particular step.”

  Judging it safer not push him, I turned the conversation in another direction.

  “Are you sure I can’t go home? If those men really searched my house, then they realized I have nothing to do with your business, whatever that is, so maybe they left.”

  “That is not guaranteed. Moreover, try not to see your family and friends anymore either. These men might get the idea to keep on an eye on them too.”

  Turning my face away, I whispered, “I don’t have family or friends.”

  I thought that he was going to change the subject so I wouldn’t be embarrassed, but he seemed content to keep staring at me.

  His steel-blue eyes made me uneasy, and I started to blush again.

  “Stop doing that,” I cried out.

  “Doing what?”

  “Looking at me with that X-ray stare of yours, like I’m a freak-show monster.”

  “I thought I was the monster here,” he said, arching an eyebrow.

  I glanced at him, hardly amiably, disliking his banter even though I was convinced he wasn’t really joking.

  “Listen, as you must have noticed, I’m not really good at talking to people. I’m usually alone. All the time, in fact.”

  “That is of no importance to me. Incidentally, I have lived alone for an eternity, and I do not feel bad about it, so there is no shame in it. I am not sparing you for your conversation but to have you as an employee. Are you competent?”

  “I think I really don’t have a choice,” I sighed. “At least I’ll be paid.”

  He rolled his eyes before rising, offering me his hand.

  “What?”

  I had accepted the deal, but I was still afraid of him. I didn’t dare touch him.

  “I believe I mentioned dinner. A self-respecting host keeps his promises.”

  His hand still outstretched, he signaled to me to look at the dining room. Indeed, the table had been set for one. I ended up letting him assist me in getting up (seeing as I still had jelly legs, this was not a bad idea) and guiding me toward my seat.

  There were a number of dishes that I hadn’t seen arrive in the room. I should also say that, given the size of the table, I hadn’t paid any attention to details, so when I saw the pinkish slices of roast beef, the vegetables, the cheese, and the strawberry tart, my stomach produced a growl hardly suited to the refinement that surrounded me. I blushed yet again, likely turning a shade of pink similar to the meat.

  “Sorry,” I apologized miserably.

  “I have never met a human who blushes as much as you. We shall have to work on your confidence, among other things.”

  “What do you mean?”

  With a wave of his hand, he brushed aside my question.

  “Later. This evening, you will rest, and then you will be more solid on your feet again. We shall go over the practical questions tomorrow. Now, eat.”

  “But what about you? You don’t eat anything?”

  I wanted to be polite, but honestly, I had no desire whatsoever to see him sucking the blood out of someone right in front of me.

  “Your concern is touching, but I have already eaten. Once again, eat.”

  I grabbed a slice of roast beef and some vegetables, but at the mention of his dinner, a knot of fear had caught in my stomach.

  “Um, have you, um, killed someone?” I asked, trying to be as calm as possible while pointing a piece of roast beef skewered on my fork at him.

  For the second time, he rolled his eyes.

  “Certainly not. I have reserves in a cold room, and I have a contact at the blood bank.”

  “OK, I don’t understand any of that.”

  “The vampire community has evolved quite a bit. We are no longer psychopathic monsters obsessed with murder via exsanguination, as humanity’s collective imagination depicts us. Eat.”

  �
�You say you’re no longer a monster. That means that you were once.”

  “Yes.”

  I suppressed the desire to ask him if he’d also had psychopathic tendencies; the thought was already making me tremble.

  Velvet Voice spoke again. “But we had to revise our method of consuming when the secret of our existence was threatened by our greatest enemy.”

  What enemy could be so powerful that it could frighten a group of immortals with special powers?

  “What enemy?” I managed to ask while swallowing the bite of roast beef that I had been brandishing on my fork.

  “Forensic science.”

  Of course. The police benefited now from advanced tools to conduct their investigations. Moreover, the pooling of resources and information via computer technology allowed them to make progress more quickly and to connect cases that had happened in different places and at different times. Leave several bloodless cadavers behind around the country, and you’ll find yourself with a pack of detectives on red alert, ready for a fight. I understood why this secret was indeed in danger.

  I then imagined Horatio Caine of CSI: Miami, his famous sunglasses and his drawling voice. He would’ve quickly destroyed the myth of the stolid detective when he figured out what kind of murderer he was dealing with. I was sure that he would have taken off yelling, his mop of red hair in the wind. I laughed at the picture of the scene.

  “You are truly strange,” said Velvet Voice. “You are ready to jump down my throat when I take care of you, and you laugh when I mention murders perpetrated by my species.”

  “Huh?”

  “That’s precisely what I was saying.”

  “Forgive me. So you’re saying that you changed your diet?”

  “You could say that. We still feed on blood, but we no longer get it directly from the source. We get our supplies from blood banks and other places where such things can be procured.”

  “That’s a bit hard to imagine . . . vampires with shopping carts in aisles filled with plastic pouches . . .”

  “Technically, it happens differently. But certain vampires in our community thought as you do, and they refuse to be compared to humans shopping at a supermarket.”

  “The transition must have been difficult for them.”

  “Indeed. There are vampires who are still in an uncivilized state. They see themselves as hunters, and nothing pleases them more than a victim that they hunt down themselves. But the punishment is horrible for those who put our Secret in danger by killing to feed.”

  “So there’s vampire legislation that regulates their activities? But who enforces it?”

  “Do you always ask so many questions?”

  “I just discovered a supernatural, unknown world. It’s normal that I would want to know more.”

  “You know enough for this evening. And I’m tired of repeatedly asking you to eat . . .”

  His tone dissuaded me from making more comments. Besides, I was starving. I abandoned my reserve and began eating in earnest.

  Everything was delicious. The meat melted in my mouth, the vegetables were perfectly seasoned, the bread was crusty, the cheese soft, and the tart . . . to die for. I was so absorbed by my meal that I didn’t realize until my second slice of strawberry tart that Velvet Voice was staring at me.

  I felt embarrassed, and I found it useful to tell him so. “Whydyou hafta lookit me like tha?”

  Raising an eyebrow, Velvet Voice looked at me with scorn. “Pardon?”

  I swallowed, aware that I was behaving like a cavewoman.

  “You’re analyzing me again. It’s very irritating.”

  “I have been studying the rules of proper table etiquette of the twenty-first-century woman. Very instructive . . .”

  I blushed. Again.

  “You’re not being fair! It’s been a day since I last ate. You should know that I’ve received a very good education and I know how to behave when the circumstances require it and . . .”

  Once again, he rolled his eyes at me.

  “I feel like we have a lot of work to do. Finish your dinner, and then go rest. I will see you tomorrow at sunset. Do not leave the outer wall of the property during the day. It is too early for that. I have a library upstairs, filled with books I’ve collected over the years. You are free to go there. You will be in your element. We begin your training tomorrow evening,” he said as he got up from his chair.

  “But . . . you’re leaving me . . . you haven’t even answered all my questions. And . . . I have nothing. All of my things are at my house.”

  “All that can wait until tomorrow.”

  Without another word, he left, leaving me alone in front of the remains of my feast.

  What an idiot. I hadn’t even been able to make him tell me where we were. He had led me where he wanted all through the conversation. It would be an understatement to say I wasn’t gifted at this sort of thing. What to do now? Escaping the manor and going home wasn’t an option unless I wanted to find a tall blond vampire sitting on my sofa, waiting to devour me. So I exhaled and started to clear the table.

  I was astonished by the kitchen when I finally found it: it was spacious, sparkling, and cutting-edge. It was two times as big as my bedroom. Velvet Voice truly spared no expense.

  I inspected the fixtures, starting with the refrigerator. I admit that I was curious about its contents, so I opened it and was bewildered by the abundance of human food: fruit, vegetables, fresh products, soda . . . It wasn’t logical. I should have found blood in there. Maybe vampires hid their personal reserves away from prying eyes, like bottles of great wine.

  Then I opened the cabinets and found boxes of cookies and crackers. If he wanted to have a party with humans, then he was well supplied, but surely a bunch of humans would jeopardize the preservation of the vampires’ great Secret.

  At least I wouldn’t go hungry. Having finished my exploration, I made several trips between the kitchen and the dining room to finish clearing my dishes and the leftovers from the gargantuan meal, all while taking note of the elegant decoration of the corridors. The white tiles were tempered by the warm tones of the light-brown paint of the walls, which were ornamented with mirrors; under each mirror were small, Japanese-style wooden tables, both Zen and practical for tidying up.

  On my last trip, the strawberry tart fought me. I couldn’t get it in the fridge. While I tried to make space for it, I must have triggered some mechanism, and previously hidden shelves slid on a track toward me.

  “Ew,” I said aloud, cringing when I saw the packets of blood stored on the shelves.

  This was Velvet Voice’s secret pantry. Quite an ingenious system, in truth. If the police had to search this place one day, they certainly wouldn’t think of hidden shelves in the fridge as a place to look for compromising evidence.

  Conquering my revulsion, I picked up one of the pouches. A+. My blood type. I picked up another one. Also A+. All the pouches were the same. Apparently vampires had preferences, a bit like humans with orange or grapefruit juice.

  I really had some luck. I’d been hired by a bloodsucker, a consumer of A+ blood, and as it happens, I was a big old walking bag of A+ blood! Even if I wasn’t particularly a believer, I muttered a little prayer that Velvet Voice wouldn’t ever be really hungry if I was close by.

  I put everything back in place so that he wouldn’t notice that I had discovered his hidden stash. I preferred not to imagine his reaction, or his glacial stare. I shivered at the thought, and I wondered if he’d had that sword-like stare as a human or if his eyes had changed after his transformation.

  Under normal circumstances, I hate doing the dishes, but I went to the sink and washed my silverware by way of distraction. In any case, I didn’t like disorder, and something told me that Velvet Voice didn’t either. At least we had that in common.

  By the time I put everything away, I was starting to feel exhausted again. Since escaping wasn’t an option and I had no idea what training my host had planned for me, a good nigh
t’s sleep seemed the best choice.

  I headed back to my new bedroom. Before undressing, I collected and threw away the pieces of the broken lamp and remade the bed. Even if I’d slept close to twenty-four hours, I was worn out. I needed sleep, especially so I could digest everything I had heard that evening. I threw myself on the immense bed, rolled myself up in the covers, and closed my eyes, avoiding thinking about what would await me the next day and the day after that . . .

  When I woke up, the room was pitch-black, and I had trouble getting my bearings. I got up anyway and moved around blindly, reaching for a lamp. When I managed to find one and turn it on, I was surprised to find a bunch of clothes neatly folded where I had left the evening gown the night before.

  On top, there was a note: “The rest is in the armoire.” No signature. Not that I really needed one.

  I glanced quickly at the clothes: a white shirt, a pair of black pants, and some gym clothes. I opened the armoire and was dumbstruck.

  The armoire had been completely empty the night before, but now it was filled with clothes, all of good quality. Velvet Voice had given me an entire wardrobe.

  Even if he were a dangerous and terrifying vampire, and even if he had my life in his hands, I was touched by his gesture . . . at least until I opened the underwear drawer . . .

  Good grief. What on earth was he thinking? I bristled, holding up a lacy pair of underwear that would reveal much more than it hid. At least he hadn’t bought any thongs. I hated them.

  He must have really been looking at me from every angle in order to know my sizes. Oh boy. I preferred to not imagine how he did it.

  The bras were just as lacy as the underwear, though there were also some sports bras that went with the gym outfits. Everything looked quite expensive.

  In the shower, I wondered how he could have procured that entire wardrobe in so little time. Maybe he stole everything from a store using his superpowers, or maybe there was a special vampire store that was only open at night. I couldn’t believe I slept right through him coming into the room to drop off the clothes. I hoped I hadn’t been snoring.