by Am Hudson
“That’s a good thing, my love.” David kissed my head. “From empathy comes forgiveness, and we don’t have time for you to hate your dad. We need his help.”
“So you’re not angry at him then?”
“Ah, no, I’m angry,” he said simply, with a disconcerting laugh. “I wanted to rip his throat out and, frankly, knowing that he can die gives me peace, because I can sit here and imagine over and over again how his eyes will look when they roll to the back of his head.”
“David!”
He shrugged one shoulder. “Can you blame me?”
“No.” I laid back down against his chest. “But when he returns here in a few days, you better be civil.”
“I am nothing if not diplomatic.”
“Good, because, like you said, we can’t win this battle if we’re hung up on hating my dad.”
Neither of us said anything again after that. I watched the fire wave and teeter as a winter breeze came down the chimney, and David rubbed my back with a firm hand, making larger then smaller circles absently, his mind clearly off in another dimension.
“It’s going to kill Sam, you know,” he said in that deep, relaxed tone I loved.
“I know.” I sat up a little to look at his face. “I wish Mike were here.”
“Why Mike?”
“He and Sam have a really good relationship; I think Sam pretty much idolises him.”
David nodded, pressing between my shoulder blades to lay me back down on his chest. “I think so too. But we need to keep Mike as far away from this nightmare as possible. He has a family to think about now.”
“But Dad said he’d return—for the battle.”
“I don’t want you to worry about that, okay?” He swept my hair back off my brow. “The visions can be altered, Ara. I’ll warn Mike—tell him to go underground.”
“And Jason?”
“He’s coming with us,” he said decisively. “And until the battle, I want him staying here with us as well.”
“Why?”
“He’s Safia’s only hope of ever resurrecting Anandene. We need to protect him in case word gets out about the baby being soulless.”
“Protect him—by taking him to a battle between immortals?”
“He won’t be fighting anyone. He’s going with you to the forest.”
“We’re going to the forest?”
“To get that apple from Lilith,” he stated, as though I should have read his mind. “It’s the best way to keep you both safe—protected by the myths surrounding that forest and, perhaps, by its magic.”
I nodded in surprise. “Clever.”
“They don’t call me King for nothing.”
“Um, technically, no one calls you King anymore.” I patted his chest in a very condescending manner. “You’re just regular old David now. Old being the operative word.”
“Bite your tongue, wench,” he said playfully, squeezing my cheeks together in one hand. “Or I’ll bite it for you.”
I giggled, shoving his hand away.
***
After spending the morning in town at a coffee shop, with a prepaid phone, and a cup of blood for David—thanks to the homeless guy in the alley—we reluctantly got back in the car and headed toward my dad’s old house. He assured us when we spoke on the phone that Vicki and Sam were not being watched by Walt’s men, but even then, as we drove down the familiar old street—the trees bare as winter breezed in and wiped away the old for the new—I felt uneasy and watchful, casting my eyes to the rooftops and toward every shadow. It was no secret now that Walt meant to kill my child, and there was a rather hefty price on my head, so we’d been told. Any vampire that had not made an oath on the Stone to me, or to Drake, was now considered an enemy.
“Are you still angry?” David asked, pulling up in the driveway.
I jerked away from his touch.
“Ara, how could I possibly have known Mike would react that way?”
“Because you know Mike! And you know he’s bound by his Blood Oath to protect me above all else—including those boys.”
“My love, he left you. He entrusted you to the hands of others; there is no way I could have known he’d jump on the first plane back if your life was in danger.”
For some reason, I didn’t believe him.
“Anyway, you need to get your game face on.” He nodded toward the blue front door, where Vicki stood for a moment, studying the car and, upon realising who was in it, sprung from the step and galloped toward us, screaming. “Time to break her heart,” he added, unbuckling.
I threw my seatbelt off and reached for the door as it flew wide open and Vicki leaned in, wrapping herself around me.
“What are you doing here? When did you get back? Oh my goodness, look at you—” She leaned back and let me breathe, “—look at that little pot belly. You look so lovely—” She turned her head to look at David, “—doesn’t she look lovely? Come on, hop out and let me get a look at you.”
As she turned to hug David, I rolled my eyes, wriggling myself out of the seat and onto my feet.
Sam appeared from inside the house, clearly to see what all the commotion was. He stood there a moment, took in Vicki and David, his eyes moving to me, then he let go of the doorframe, started at a run down the steps, and shook his head softly as he jogged across the grass. “I knew you’d eventually be back.”
“Couldn’t stay away from my little bro,” I said, stumbling back as he wound his arms around me. When my belly touched his, though, he jumped back a bit, looking down at it.
“Whoa. You got big.”
“Are you joking?” Vicki said, coming in for another hug. “She’s tiny. Only half the size I was with you, Sam.”
Sam just shrugged.
“Everything’s fine, though,” David assured, “with the baby. We had a scan—she’s progressing well. She’s just a bit little, that’s all.”
Vicki looked relieved. “I was just about to ask.”
“I figured.” David winked at me.
“Come on inside then.” She gave my hand a tug, and as her frail fingers wrapped mine I flinched a little; she didn’t look all that much thinner to the untrained eye, but on closer inspection, she clearly wasn’t eating. “Are you just visiting?” she added, “or…”
“We’re moving back,” I said. “At least until I’ve had the baby.”
She looked at Sam, then at me and then at David. “Well, that’s just great news! Isn’t it great news, Sam?”
“Yeah,” he said with a laugh, rolling his eyes affectionately after his mom passed.
“And will you be staying with us? Because you’re more than welcome, you know. I—”
“We’re moving back to my house,” I lied.
“But what about the tenants?”
“They’re moving out.”
“Oh, well…” She stood back from the front door to let us in. “I suppose that’s not as far away as Paris.”
“Close enough to visit at least every weekend,” David offered.
“When are you moving back in?”
“In a few weeks,” I said, unwinding my white scarf from my neck. But as I stepped over the threshold and the warmth of the fire in the den carried the familiar smell of home and a lifetime of memories, I stopped. Sam closed the door behind us and I just wanted to close my eyes as it clicked into place—shutting out the world and all that was wrong with it. It felt like home here still—like a safe haven—so familiar that my heart filled up with grief.
Last time I was here, my dad was just a man—a man that had passed away—and so many of the emotions I felt that day still lingered here. I couldn’t seem to resolve his loss with the fact that he was still alive. Maybe because he could never be Greg Thompson again—school teacher; loved community member; father and husband—or maybe because the truth of the real man was so far from the lie it made me wish he was still living as the human. Greg Thompson loved his daughter, his family; he would never have plotted to kill my child. But then, h
e did plot, didn’t he? He had been all along. He’d closed his bedroom door every night, knowing a vampire would sneak through my window. He’d sent me off to school, knowing I’d meet David and that my fate would be sealed. He’d been the wasp in the beehive since day one.
“It never gets any easier,” Vicki said, touching my shoulder.
I quickly wiped the tears from my eyes. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry, dear.” She pulled me in for another hug, and it was just so warm and so human, and she smelled so familiar—of lemon laundry soap and lavender perfume—that I wanted to stay here in her arms forever and never have to tell her that her husband didn’t love her enough to make her immortal.
“Come on,” she said, rubbing my back. “Let’s make some coffee. And you’re in luck, I just baked some cookies.”
“Mom, you’ve always just baked some cookies,” Sam said, and we all laughed softly, the tension easing a few degrees. Nothing was ever that bad that Vicki’s cookies wouldn’t taste amazing.
***
All I could think about, as we sat at the table catching up, was Vicki’s face the day I arrived here after my dad supposedly died. She was smiling now, but I still saw the hollowed-out woman on the porch, looking down at me like her heart had just been ripped from her body, taking her soul down with it. She loved my dad more than he deserved. And when I finally got the courage up to break the news to her, the smile she wore now would fade and I wasn’t sure it would ever return.
“Here,” Vicki said to Sam, handing him the plate of cookie crumbs. “Go feed these to your dog. I know how much he likes my cookies.”
“He’s not here.” Sam shoved the plate away and sat back with his arms folded.
“Where is he?”
“Off doing whatever he does when he’s not being my dog.”
Vicki shook her head dismissively, but a thought sparked in her mind then that even I caught: she thought Sam was losing his mind—that he believed the dog could talk, and perhaps it was time to get him some help.
“That dog used to hang around my house, too,” I offered. “Did you know that?”
Sam nodded to confirm, and Vicki’s brows went up on her forehead.
“Oh?”
“Yeah, he’s…” I winked at Sam. “No ordinary dog.”
“See, Mom?” He rolled his hand out toward me. “Told ya I’m not going mad.”
“Ara simply said the dog hung around there, Sam. Not that it could communicate with her.”
“Actually—” I sipped my coffee and then placed the mug back down on the table, “—Petey’s not your average dog.” Say it, Ara. Say it. He’s not a dog. He’s a vampire. A man. “He kind of does talk—in his own way.” Coward!
“And I suppose you’re going to tell me he did actually show Sam the answers to his math homework.”
“He did that?” I smiled expectantly at Sam; he shrugged. “It wouldn’t surprise me,” I added, and Sam looked up from the tabletop, his attention moving to Vicki.
“Nonsense.” She stood and took the plate to the sink. “Dogs aren’t that smart.”
“Yes, but… that’s not a dog,” I said, taking a really deep, centring breath then as my heart leaped and dived in my chest, my blood rushing through my veins like cars down a freeway. “He’s a vampire.”
Vicki laughed, her blonde hair swishing around her chin as she moved her head from side to side.
“Mom.” Sam studied my face, sitting up in his chair. “She wasn’t making fun of my delusions about the dog. She was serious.”
Vicki put the plate down and stopped laughing. “Oh no. Not you, too, Ara.”
“She’s not insane, Vicki,” David added. “Although it sounds insane, she’s telling the truth.”
“The dog?” she said, confirming with a look. “Is a vampire?”
“And so is Sam,” I said, spitting it out before I could chicken out.
She looked at Sam, her mouth playing on a smile.
“And so was Dad.” I shut my eyes so I didn’t have to see her face. “Actually, so is Dad.”
“Is?” Sam said.
“Is,” I repeated.
I felt David shift beside me, his hand touching my waist before Vicki’s bony finger caught my chin and thrust my face upward.
“That’s not funny, Ara-Rose,” she said, her steely eyes making me want to close mine again, “and I won’t have you coming here after months being away, and start filling Sam’s head with silly stories!”
At this point, I wished I still had my phone so I could show her the photo of my much younger dad and I at the Festival.
“So am I—a vampire,” I added, unperturbed by her disbelief. “And so is David.”
Her eyes landed on him, changing slightly. Clearly, she believed that one.
“The bite marks?” She touched her neck, slumping breathlessly down on the chair behind her. “When you were attacked at the ball.”
“Yes,” I confirmed. “It was a vampire.”
“Was it you?” Sam stood up, towering over the table with a look of vengeance in his eye.
“No,” David said.
Sam sat down. Slowly.
“And… so…” Vicki stuttered, trying to make sense of it all. “My husband was…”
“Is, I think she said, Mom,” Sam muttered, his voice shaky. He stood again, his lips tight, cheeks stiff and hollowed. “Dad is a vampire, right, Ara?”
I saw the hope mingle with uncertainty and fear in his eyes; I saw the trail of thoughts that his mind would follow when I answered with what he so badly wanted to hear; I saw the questions fill him up with raging fire.
“Is,” I confirmed again, and Sam sat down.
“He’s… but he died,” Vicki said in a hollow, breathy voice, her eyes lensed by tears. “He died.”
“He faked his death,” David said, his own voice fragile with tenderness.
Vicki folded forward, crying into her hand.
I held my breath, grasping on tight to the strong, dutiful person I’d grown to be.
“He left to protect you,” I lied, hoping it would help. And it was a lie because, in truth, he left to protect Sam from the repercussions of killing my unborn baby. He never intended to stay with Vicki forever.
“To protect us?” Vicki looked up, her aged cheeks streaked with tears. “From what?”
“There is a war among our kind,” David advised. “Ara and I moved away to take care of it, but things went… bad, and Vampirie—” We both cringed. “Greg needed to return to help us.”
“Return?” Vicki just looked more confused. She wiped her sleeve under her nose—something I’d never ever seen her do—and suddenly she was just a woman with a broken heart—not a mom, not the super-strong leader of the family. Just a woman.
“He needed to fake his human death,” I started, and as if that was what Sam needed to hear to confirm it, he leaned over and rested his head in his hands on the tabletop, sobbing quietly to himself. “But he’s alive,” I added. “Just… he… he um…”
“Ara, spit it out!” Vicki said with urgency.
“He’s young.”
“Young?”
“He’s a unique kind of vampire—one that can age if he denies himself blood,” I told her, leaving out the part that this was a secret; we’d fill in the gaps later. “When he does drink blood, he… it reverses the ageing.”
Vicki and Sam both looked up at me like fourth grade children in a birthing class.
“This is a lot to take in.” I rubbed my face with both hands, pushing my hair off it then tidying it back down over my forehead again. “Vampires. Blood drinking. Immortality. Dad…”
David leaned purposefully forward and looked right at Sam, bringing his face down in line with the way Sam slouched. “Mike’s coming back in a few days—”
“He is?” Sam looked up.
David sat taller. “He found out about what’s going on with our kind, and he got in the car immediately to come back.”
“So
he knows?” Vicki asked, then she looked at me. “He knows you’re a…”
“Vampire. Yes.”
“Has he always known?”
“No,” David said quickly, as though the answer to that mattered more than it seemed to.
“He suspected for a while,” I added. “But he didn’t actually know until he came back here after the wedding was called off.”
“Does he know that Dad’s… alive?” Sam asked, concentrating on that last word like it was a life lesson.
“Yes.”
“How come he didn’t tell me?” His face crumpled and his mouth turned down, the tears falling freely out from between his lashes and down his cheeks. “We talk all the time. He knew what I was going through, why would he—”
“Mike couldn’t tell you, Sam. Because Dad, and I, forbade him.”
“So what?” he said. “We—”
“He’s bound by his word,” I explained. “Like a priest—kind of.”
“And yes,” David cut in. “Mike’s a vampire, too—”
“He is?”
I nodded. “He’s my head of security, and it is his responsibility to protect me and my people, and telling anyone about Dad could have put him, me, and you all in real danger. This isn’t a joke, Sam! If anyone finds out that Dad can reverse the ageing and become a more-human and less-powerful version of himself, they may wait until he does just that, and then kill him.”
“Did he… did he ever plan to tell us?” Vicki asked, but I knew that she already knew the answer to that.
“He thought he was doing the right thing,” I said.
No one spoke then. Sam sat back, exhaling. Vicki did too, but a bit slower and with a bit more grace. And David I just sat waiting, our shoulders tight and high.
“I just wanna kick something.”
“I know, Sam. I felt the same when I found out.”
“So you didn’t know?” Vicki asked. “At the funeral—”
“No. God, no.” I shook my head, my eyes wide. “I would never have pretended to grieve for him, Vicki. I just wouldn’t do that.”
She nodded, looking a little relieved.