Peace, Blood, and Understanding

by Molly Harper

  “Just stay put, you two,” Dick said. “You’re gonna be just fine.”

  The speaker clicked off, leaving Weston and me to stare at each other in horror. Somehow it was so much worse knowing that our predicament didn’t come from a mechanical error but from some sort of violence in the office. Were we being attacked? It had happened in other regional offices. Human antivampire terrorists breaking in with guns or explosives to try to take out as many of the “bloodsuckers” as they could. Of course, there were just as many incidents of employees suffering a mental break and attacking their coworkers. There was a reason we had so many security measures here at the office.

  “It’s going to be all right,” I said, as much to myself as to Weston.

  “I wouldn’t call dangling by a thread over an abyss in a tiny matchbox ‘all right,’ ” he said, still wincing as he tried to find a comfortable sitting position.

  “OK, um, tell me something I don’t know,” I told him.

  “What?”

  “Tell me something I don’t know,” I repeated. “Something you’ve learned during your research.”

  “Uhh… the average American worker thinks they’re at least eleven percent more productive than all of their coworkers,” he said, wincing as he touched his side.

  “OK, what else?”

  “Time theft costs American employers more than four hundred billion dollars annually in lost productivity,” he grunted, making me laugh. “American employers lose twenty to forty billion dollars every year to employee theft.”

  “Wow, you have never been invited to a single birthday party, have you?” I asked, shaking my head. He gave me a sour look.

  “Feel better?” I asked him.

  “A little. Why?”

  “You’re claustrophobic. Distractions help sometimes. And you like factoids. I thought it was a sound theory.”

  “When you’re dangling by a thread over an abyss in a tiny matchbox, yes, I think everybody is claustrophobic.”

  I chuckled. “Actually, this doesn’t freak me out that bad.”

  “Because of your extensive time in cells after your many ‘save the whales’ protests during your human years?”

  “Well, it would have been difficult to fit that into my social schedule, what with the cotillions and lawn parties.” I snorted.

  Weston’s mouth dropped open as if I’d punched him in his still-misshapen gut. “I’m sorry?”

  “I’ll have you know I was a debutante. I had a big coming-out ball. Wore the white dress, carried the virginal flowers, and everything.”

  “This was before the ‘several dozen murders’ phase?” Weston glanced at my outfit—a black broomstick skirt, wedge sandals, and a pink blouse printed with tiny white peonies. “I’m having a hard time picturing it.”

  I drew my nail across my wrist, leaving a long shallow cut. It would heal after a few minutes, but I just didn’t have the stomach for biting myself to feed someone else.

  “What are you doing?” he asked as I held my arm out to him.

  “You look like liquid paper. You’ve got broken bones, and we don’t know how long we’re going to be in here. And if we’re in the middle of some sort of attack situation, I would like my elevator buddy to be in fighting shape when those doors open.”

  He stared at my wrist for so long that I was afraid the wound would close up before he made a decision. Finally, he grumbled, “I accept your arguments.”

  He curled around my arm, bringing me close to him. And through all of the scents in the elevator car—the starflower and the peppermint tea—his own sea-and-forest-and-dark-naked-places aroma rose and wrapped its way around my head. I relaxed against him. With his fangs dropping, just as brilliantly white and sharp as I expected them to be, he closed his mouth around the wound. I’d never actually fed someone else before, straight from my flesh, but I expected it to be less… tender? His lips were shaped around my skin like a lover giving a kiss, his tongue lapping at me with what felt like affection. I felt a rush of warmth and relief through my belly, but anything had to feel better than the terror of the last few minutes. But he leaned away from me, holding himself stiffly, as if the movement was painful—which it probably was, given how many bones he seemed to have broken.

  I shook my head and arranged him against my side, both of us wincing as his leg snapped back into alignment. I needed noise—anything to drown out the sound of his healing and the occasional creaking of the elevator car. I let out a shaky, unnecessary breath and said, “So, I grew up in an affluent family. Have you ever driven through Lexington and wondered, What kind of people live on all these horse farms?”

  He didn’t answer me, his mouth too busy against my skin, lips moving in patterns that were making me a little dizzy.

  “Well, I’ll tell you: rich ones. And occasionally, used-to-be-rich ones with major cash-flow problems and the moral flexibility to do whatever they can to gain that cash back. People who are willing to use the fertilizer they’re supposed to maintain their pastures and feed crops with to manufacture meth.”

  “What?” Suddenly, his mouth pulled away from my arm, his lips painted red. He was already a little less chalky pale, and his chest was a regular human shape now. He relinquished my arm, like a small child reluctantly giving up a favorite blanket, but he didn’t move away from my side.

  “Horse farming is a very risky venture,” I said, staring at the wall across from us and its red-tainted tea stain. “Huge overhead for limited rewards. All it takes is a few bad breeding seasons, a few years without a showing at the big races, before you fall off the buyers’ radar and your stud fees drop to nothing. And then the mortgages start coming due. We’d had more than a few years of bad breeding seasons and damn near a decade without a decent showing. One of the farmhands told my daddy that he knew a quick way to make money. Before Daddy knew what he was agreeing to, half a dozen of the hands had turned one of the breeding barns into a lab. And no one would suspect. I mean, the farm had a license and a legitimate reason for ordering the fertilizer they needed for processing. And who would think an old, established family like mine would dabble in a dirty trade like that? I mean, we hosted fund-raisers for women’s shelters and D.A.R.E. and all those wonderful causes, out at the farm on our picturesque garden patio overlooking the pastures.”

  “And you were aware this was happening?” he asked.

  “Yeah. I was a kid, but I wasn’t stupid. I didn’t want to know where the money came from as long as my little world seemed secure,” I said. “My daddy was proud; he tried to act like he was above all that, just a man trying to support his family. But once you get caught up in that world, you’re just as dirty as everybody else involved.”

  At this point, Weston was staring at me like I was speaking in tongues. I hadn’t shared this story in years. Hell, I hadn’t even told Luke this much about my human years and my family. Jane and Dick only knew the story because the Council informed them before I moved to their district. But Weston was here with me in this awful situation, and some impulse to show him something about myself that was real, that I’d kept hidden, seemed to be forcing the words to spill from my lips.

  “My father crossed the wrong people,” I said, twisting my fingers in one of the ties on my blouse sleeve. “There were vampires involved in the group that distributed his product.”

  When Weston’s brow wrinkled in confusion, I added, “It’s a quick way to make a buck. Not all vampires are good at playing the long game in the stock market.”

  “True enough.”

  “I was home from college one weekend. And it just so happened that my dad was late on one of his shipments because the government started cracking down on the chemicals he used. His vampire distributors paid a visit and thought that seeing his little girl turned into a vampire in front of him would be a demonstrative lesson on the importance of timely deliveries. And they were right. As far as I know, he was never late with a shipment again,” I said. “And, well, my parents certainly didn’t wan
t me around anymore, embarrassing them with my lack of a pulse. And the vampire who sired me had disappeared, which was fine, since he seemed to be not such a nice guy. So I was turned over to the Louisville Council office like an unwanted puppy. My first foster sire was a bit of a joke. He didn’t care what I did, as long as I stayed out of his way. And I used that freedom in the worst possible way. I went… well, there’s no nice word for ‘murderous vigilante,’ but I basically spent the better part of two years wandering the streets of Lexington, killing people I thought were doing something wrong—drug dealers, muggers, guys I saw slipping stuff into women’s drinks at bars. Anyone that smelled of bad intentions, they were my food. I felt righteous when I hunted them. I’d been hurt, and I was keeping other people from getting hurt. It was all bullshit, a rationalization. I hurt a lot of people. It took a while for the guilt to hit me and for the authorities to catch up with me, but eventually, both did.

  “I was like a newborn vampire cautionary tale. That’s why I don’t have a Council file, not one that’s accessible to you, at least. The Louisville Council reps were kind to me—kinder than they had to be, under the circumstances. And believe it or not, they didn’t want that setting a precedent. I was fortunate that the woman I was turned over to, Leona Schwartz, specialized in handling very angry vampires. I mean, I’m a constant work in progress. It’s why I work so hard with the teas and the meditation and just trying to stay in control of my emotions. But Leona showed me that taking away from other people wasn’t going to make me feel whole, that giving in to all that anger was only going to make me worse, not better. She helped me find peace in her garden, just sitting there, listening to the plants in the wind. She taught me about how different herbs interacted with our biology, how I could help myself and others. She taught me a way to atone for what I’d done. She wanted me to take responsibility for my actions but not wallow in the guilt of it. I couldn’t change it, I could only balance the scales. She gave me a new life. And yes, maybe I overcorrected and went a little ‘flower child,’ but I have a hell of a lot more joy in this life than I did as Bitsy Somerfield.”

  He stared at me, his mouth hanging open. “It feels so wrong to laugh right now, after you revealed such personal information, but… Bitsy?”

  “It’s short for Elizabeth,” I said, shoving at his side. The ribs under my hands felt whole and healed, so I didn’t feel bad at all when he tumbled over and wheezed out a pained huff.

  “I’m sorry!” he yelped. “I’m sorry. Meadow Schwartz is an obvious improvement.”

  “Leona was more family to me than my parents ever were. And I chose Meadow because it represented an open space, filled with possibilities.”

  “It’s a nice name,” he told me, sitting back up and pushing my hair out of my eyes. “It’s lovely. But in my head, I will now and forever see you as ‘Bitsy.’ ”

  “If you tell anyone about this, I will arrange for you to be under the elevator car next time.”

  He snickered and wrapped his arm around my shoulder, cushioning me this time. And to my surprise, I let him. I’d told him about “Bitsy,” after all; a little physical closeness was hardly comparable. “Do you ever feel like you want to contact your parents?” he asked.

  “No. I think that door is closed. And not just because I blame them for me being turned but because of how they treated me after, like I was the embarrassment. I mean, they worked with drug dealers. But my not having a pulse was this huge humiliation? This wasn’t my plan for my life. I wanted kids. I wanted a normal family life and a dog and sunlight and cheeseburgers on the grill on Sunday. I mean, I’ve accepted it, but it certainly isn’t the life I would have chosen for myself if I could have. They’re trying to find me now, and I’m not sure how to feel about it. They sent a private investigator to get me to talk to them.”

  “That awful man who stinks of maple syrup? The one who was at your door the other night?”

  “The very same. I told him that I’m not the person they’re looking for, but I don’t think he believes that I don’t want to see them again. I don’t think he cares that I don’t want to see them.”

  “Of course you wouldn’t. The name thing alone is unforgivable.”

  “That was mean,” I told him, but I was laughing.

  “But you still have Leona, so that has to be some relief to you.”

  “She was staked about five years ago.”

  “I’m so sorry,” he said, his dark chocolate eyes going wide with alarm.

  “She’d lived a long time. Centuries. Unfortunately, not all of her charges were as willing to embrace her kind of change. She knew it was a risk, taking on people who were, well, natural predators with attachment issues. I try to think of it as her dying doing what she loved, which she would have wanted. Even if it really sucks. So, what about you? I think I’ve let my tragic backstory linger long enough.”

  “Oh, well, I told you a little bit about my parents. They were nice enough people. I mean, they never neglected me or sold me out to meth dealers.”

  “It’s a rare parental standard,” I admitted.

  “Their name was Werner, but they changed it when they came to New York. They wanted me to do well in this new country, to have the success they didn’t have, achieve the American dream. They gave me everything I needed, like your parents: the education, the right clothes. But they didn’t really seem to know what else would be important to me besides growing up and being successful. They didn’t ask me what I wanted in life or what I enjoyed. Everything was about work, an attitude I haven’t quite managed to shake even seventy years later.”

  I laughed softly.

  “Every visit home was the same. ‘How is work? Does your boss like you? When will you get a promotion?’ I knew they wanted the best for me, but they barely knew me as a person, and I barely knew them. So when I was turned and my sire, Jonas, took a true interest in me, in showing me what was important in life, how to find joy in things, it meant a lot to me. He taught me about art and music and, like I said, the joy of hunting a good meal—even if he didn’t teach me about jumping off of buildings at top running speed.” He nudged me, and I settled my forehead into the curve of his throat. “And when he died, I suppose I did the thing I knew to cope: threw myself back into work, buried myself in it so I couldn’t feel the pain quite so much.”

  “How did he die?” I asked.

  “He worked for the national office. He had a similar position to mine, improving operation systems and investigating possible corruption in regional offices across the country. He had the New York and Chicago and Los Angeles offices running like tops. People took so much as a pencil and he knew about it. He went to investigate reports of problems in an office in Tennessee, near Martin? Problems a lot like the Half-Moon Hollow office, to be honest—food poisoning, PR problems, scandal aplenty. And he never came back.”

  “I’m sorry.” I sighed.

  This was one of the most depressing conversations I’d ever had, but it was nice, sharing like this. I’d kept so many of my relationships distant, to prevent speaking the words that hurt so much. But this… It felt right.

  “Did you ever see your parents after you were turned?”

  “Well, no. I mean, back then, nobody knew that vampires were real, and I didn’t want to scare them,” he said, his lips curving into a smile as our foreheads touched. “And I was afraid I could hurt them. The Council sent human operatives to inform them that I’d died in a car accident, and they mourned me.”

  “It’s nice that you had them, though,” I said softly as I sat there, curled against him, breathing in his scent. “Not many people have parents like that.”

  I could hear thumps and the sounds of gunfire upstairs.

  “What is happening up there?” I wondered.

  “I don’t know. I don’t have a good feeling about it… or our dangling in an elevator shaft above who knows how many floors.”

  “So do you think we should try to get out?”

  “Well, we w
ill definitely survive a fall, if something happens to the elevator car. We don’t know what they’re dealing with upstairs, though, so it’s probably better to stay where we are.”

  The gunshots sounded again, closer to us this time, and the sheer volume of the noise had me shrinking against him. I didn’t want to squeal like a coward, but again I say, gunshots. Weston’s hand cradled my head, his thumb tracing my cheekbone.

  “You’re really not in a relationship with Luke Corso?” he whispered, so close to my mouth that I could feel the words forming on his lips.

  “Why are you so hung up on that?” I asked.

  “Call it my old-fashioned values. It’s not all that evolved, I’m aware. But I don’t want to walk through a door unless the previous one closes.”

  “Luke and I… Whatever we were, I think I broke it, recently. Very recently,” I said.

  “I know,” he said. “I heard through the wall.”

  “Then why did you ask—” I was interrupted by his mouth sealing over mine in a desperate, hungry kiss. I could taste my own blood on his lips, and it was not nearly as repulsive as that sounds. I moaned into him. It felt so good to kiss someone who knew me, not just as Meadow but as, well, Bitsy. Someone who knew about the shame of my early vampire days and wanted me anyway.

  He’d seen some truly awful behavior from me, and he still wanted me—hell, he seemed to want me because of how I sparred with him. It probably said something deeply weird about the both of us, but I wasn’t willing to explore it at the moment. He was touching me everywhere—brushing his thumbs across my cheekbones, sliding his palms down my bare arms, framing my collarbone with his fingers—like he’d been waiting to get his hands on me forever.

  The way his mouth felt against mine was sending these strange fluttering waves through my belly, in a way that I’d never felt before, not even with Luke. I never felt like I was creeping to the edge of orgasm just from kissing. I never wanted to stop kissing him. Was that normal? Was that possible, just to keep kissing someone until the end of time? I mean, we had the ability, but the logistics seemed impractical.