Born Into Love

by LaClaire, Catherine

  * * *

  Diego found his beloved by a window looking down at the nighttime traffic coursing through the city streets. She turned at his footfall.

  “Why does Teodoro hate you?”

  “You know his name?”

  “I asked Ms. Rogers.”

  “After tonight he and Remy will not bother us.”

  “Which doesn’t answer my question.”

  He steered her past the textile display to a private elevator. Mercedes staggered and clutched her stomach.

  “I’m dizzy. I’ve got a pain under my ribs.”

  They found a small bench, one of many dotting the museum. “Sit.” The cold marble presented a cruel reminder that he slept on a similar slab. “Are you feeling better?”

  “Room’s spinning. I’m going to. . .”

  He caught her. The ride to the hospital, near as it was, tortured him as if he were being whipped. In the emergency room, her skin turned clammy and pale. The EMTs wheeled her into a curtained cubicle. A young doctor with dark circles under his eyes took her pulse.

  “What happened?”

  As he gazed at Diego awaiting an answer, Diego scanned the doctor’s thoughts. The medic cataloged her symptoms, trying to link them to an ailment. Diego explained that to the best of his knowledge, she had only had one glass of champagne.

  “What’d she eat?”

  “I don’t know, perhaps hors d’oeuvres.”

  “Is she pregnant?”

  Diego stumbled over the answer. “I do not think so.”

  The doctor unwound the stethoscope that hung from his neck and listened to her chest. “Might be an allergic reaction.”

  Mercedes’ lashes fluttered. She tried to sit. “Probably that wine with Ms. Rogers.” The doctor kept her in place with a hand on her shoulder and interrogated her about the drink of which she knew little.

  “Stay down. I’m going to run a few tests.” Again he asked about a possible pregnancy.

  She shook her head.

  “I’ll need blood. You won’t miss it.”

  “Do I have to take off my dress?”

  Sick people did not worry about their clothes. Relieved by this thought, Diego relaxed a bit.

  When the doctor approached her vein with the needle, Diego excused himself. They waited. The tests came back normal. Still, they remained there assuring themselves that no other symptoms would occur. With no more surprises and no need for meds, she wrote her name on a release form and they left. Color seeped into her cheeks.

  He put his arm around her shoulder. She yawned, but cloaked her mouth as he was sure her mother taught her. “Can we fly?”

  An ordinary question, yet it startled him. As a vampire, if he turned her, she could fly around the world. He dropped the thought as he would hot steel. “We will hail a cab to the heliport.” The drink had taken a toll, but her desire for answers proved stronger.

  “Teodoro. Bad blood?”

  “Your choice of words is ironic.”

  “Why?”

  The past and the present suddenly gripped each other. “His people and mine should never have met. When they did, people died.”

  “In a war?”

  “In a battle.”

  “I can’t tell what side won.”

  “Neither.”

  The mist lay heavy upon the beach when they climbed the steps to the back door of her cottage. Mercedes yawned again; her body coming down from too many stress hormones. “I will tuck you into bed.” Soon she would know his secret. In this matter Diego was a coward. He feared her reaction more than fire.

  “I love you, Diego.”

  Words that obliterated centuries of loneliness. “We are well matched. I love you.”

  “Do you want children?” she asked almost slurring her words from weariness.

  Sawdust poured into his heart. “If I could have them, I would.”

  “Me too.”

  Upstairs he helped her undress, kissed her bare shoulders before she slipped into a sheer cotton nightgown trimmed with lace. The soft fabric allowed the warmth of her body to seep through the fibers. He pulled a sheet and a blanket up to her chin, and let himself out of the house.

  He hurried into the dark, transformed, and fed early. He could not confront his enemies in a weakened state.

  The doorman buzzed Remy’s quarters. Entering other ways had been a possibility and one Diego was sure he expected. Diego wanted to surprise the famous treasure hunter by arriving normally. What would Remy threaten him with? A wooden stake? A flame-thrower?

  Remy answered the door wearing a silk smoking jacket open at the neck revealing pale chest hair. Of course, he had been waiting.

  “Enjoy the hospital?”

  Diego was the sole survivor of thousands of confrontations. It was Remy who messed with fire. “Tell me, Remy, are you prepared for your fate?” Diego would not kill him, but he would ruin him.

  Remy laughed. “Are you?”

  Diego hesitated but a moment sensing another presence. “Come out, Teodoro.”

  The importer entered the living room that looked more like a sea captain’s salon than a luxury condo in Manhattan. Nautical maps and portraits of seafaring vessels clung to the dark gray walls, fabulous ships that Remy would have died on because his drugs de jour had weakened the constitution of his already compromised character.

  But Teodoro and Diego had experienced savagery and regardless of the location, they would always be enemies.

  “Good of you to come. I am happy you are such a cooperative vampire.”

  This man spoke with a condescending tone unusual under the circumstances. Wasn’t he stronger than they?

  “We need your expertise.”

  They expected him to cooperate?

  Remy smeared himself into an overstuffed leather sofa. “There’s a map on the tablets. Rivers? Trails? We don’t know.” His eyes glittered with gold fever. “You know and you’re going to show us.”

  “No,” Teodoro said, “he’s going to take us.”

  Diego’s fangs descended. Remy bounced off the sofa and slammed into a wall. In his panic he resembled Dave. Teodoro drew closer. His voice turned into a chant that Diego remembered from his death.

  “Recognize it, beast?”

  Diego grabbed him by his silk tie and twisted the fabric.

  “If you kill me,” the sorcerer squawked, “Mercedes dies. I’ve poisoned her. Tonight you witnessed the first episode. Each attack brings her closer to death unless she gets the antidote. Join us or she won’t recover.”

  Remy dared to strut. “And that’s not all. Remember my sidekick? He’s already watching Mercedes’ sister and your maid. Nobody’s getting out of this alive unless you cooperate.” He assumed a victor’s stance. “Who’s the big shot now?”

  Diego wanted to strike them down. Manhattan had skilled doctors, experts in medicine. They could find the cure Mercedes needed.

  “No one can help,” Teodoro said. “The rain forest antidote has been passed to me from a sorcerer whose face and name I am sure you can remember.”

  Ma’ta.

  “You don’t want your whore to die, do you?” Remy talked big. Diego perused his thoughts. The procedure did not take long for Remy was shallow. His skull housed no information about the antidote. Diego tried to enter Teodoro’s mind. The sorcerer blocked him.

  “Diego, I am not so foolish that I would approach you without protection. Centuries of potions and spells, remember?”

  Diego was trapped and so was Mercedes. His fangs receded. But in Peru, he could search for an herbalist. Could the solution be that simple? And if no one could help?

  Teodoro slapped a paper against his thigh. “This is a rubbing from the tablets.”

  “They are ingots.” Diego looked but the lines meant nothing. He knew of no tomb and had only heard of the treasure from these perverted creatures. Perhaps he could find the village, but doubt also entered his thoughts. His condition required that he sleep on the village soil, perhaps he could
use that scent to guide him, but could he retrace his jungle path after centuries?

  And there were darker worries. How could he sustain himself on rain forest animals after a diet of bovines? He hid his concerns and told them what they wanted to hear. “You have left me no choice.”

  Remy fed on the power he believed Diego had surrendered. “Cross us and we’ll expose you. Imagine that on a reality show.”

  Teodoro smirked drawing his lips over small white teeth. “My followers are familiar with the legend, at least the version I told them, of the vampire who spared our pregnant ancestor. It would be a shame to kill pregnant Annie this century.”

  “Give me the antidote. I will not have Mercedes in pain.”

  “It will be delivered.”

  He did not remember seizing them, but on Remy’s narrow patio, their screams carried off by the city’s canyon winds, he came back to himself. “The antidote, now. Or the first deaths will be yours.”

  They agreed. Teodoro gave him a single white seed.

  “Where are the others?”

  “That is all I have until tomorrow when I get a diplomatic pouch.”

  Diego read in Remy’s mind that Teodoro spoke the truth. Grief lodged in his throat. “When do we leave?”

  “Tomorrow evening. Mercedes will need another dose at that time. After all, she foolishly drained the entire wineglass.” His voice regained some of its strength. “And a dose every day after that.”

  “For how long?”

  “Until the poison exits her tissues. Each person reacts differently so I’m told. Transportation has been arranged from Kennedy to Peru.”

  Diego needed to release the rage smoldering under his skin. In an adjacent alley, he transformed into a wolf. A man with a whiskey bottle glanced at him then crawled into a cardboard box. Diego ran taking long strides. So many scents rose from the soil that he could not hold their names.

  Mercedes. Annie. He did not remember them as humans, but as kin. In the dark of an underpass, his body temporarily rid of frustration, he became his passable human self.

  The gang of hoodlums lurking behind the blueberry bushes knew enough not to jump him. He exited the park for he had another visit to pay.

  After tossing fitfully against the pillow, the curator awoke. Diego snapped on the bed lamp. She opened her mouth to scream but he pressed his hand against her dry lips. “Tell me about the poison.”

  Her eyes flew wildly in their orbits. She attempted to push him away, but he was stronger than any human. “I will not hurt you.” Even scaring her cost him. He removed his hand allowing her to cry long harsh sobs. “Why did you betray Mercedes?”

  “Th. . .They threatened to torture my parents.” Her quavering voice disappeared into her palm.

  “What was in the drink?”

  “I don’t know.” Her voice climbed higher like the whimper of a frightened puppy.

  “Describe it.”

  “Powdery.”

  “Color?”

  “Brownish red. I just had a glimpse.”

  “Texture?”

  “Like pollen!” She trembled; afraid he would strike her for the outburst. “I’m a victim too.”

  He could argue the same thing. “Did it have a scent?”

  She swallowed and her throat squeaked. “I don’t know.”

  “Look into my eyes.” A meek child under his control, she obeyed. He waved his hand over her tear-tracked face. “Who handled the poison?”

  “Teodoro.”

  “Picture him. What does he do?”

  “Some fell on his wrist. He said, `it has to be ingested to kill.’”

  “Did he mention the antidote?”

  “He mumbled something about blending life and death.”

  Diego loathed riddles and now he would be taunted by Teodoro’s cryptic answer. “How did he carry the poison?”

  “In a piece of paper, folded. He intends to kill you both.” She paused. “There’s something else.”

  “What?”

  “He said it would be a good joke on you.”

  “What did he mean buy ‘it’?”

  “I don’t know. He laughed like a maniac. Terrifying.”

  Diego waved his hand. “Remember that you enjoyed a beverage with Mercedes. Forget my visit.”

  “Yes, Master.”

  Despite the hour, he phoned his beloved. Her voice came to him filled with dreams. He would not shatter them tonight.

  Tomorrow he would explain everything.

  Chapter 10

  Diego fed in his vault then rested for the hardest moment of his undead life: confessing to the woman he loved that he was a vampire. At sunrise he called Mercedes to him as he paced in front of her deck-a violation of one of his own rules. She stepped onto the weathered cedar boards. The wind teased her delicate nightgown and her hair. The morning mist so reminiscent of the English moors licked at his feet.

  Mercedes glanced around, shocked to find herself outside. “What am I doing here?”

  “I need to speak with you.”

  She rubbed the chill from her arms. “This can’t be a dream. I’m too cold. Come inside while I change.”

  Mercedes dashed to her bedroom. He retrieved the yellow cotton sweater she kept on a brass hook in the kitchen by the pantry. He held it to his nose and inhaled. His gaze shifted to the fickle ocean presently building waves.

  She chewed a protein bar and wore the sweater. The extra layer would protect her from the dampness, but not from the shock about to come her way. At the ocean’s edge they linked hands.

  “I don’t want to walk. Tell me now.”

  He indicated several granite boulders, extra slabs from a truckload used to build the jetty that marked the channel. “Please sit.”

  “You’ve got a strange expression on your face. My stomach’s tying in knots.”

  “I am not who you think.”

  “Not a rich collector? Not my amante? Not my love?”

  She would not make his revelation easy. “I am rich, your lover, your love and a collector, but I am different from the men you have known. I am not just a man.”

  She smiled. “What are you, an alien?”

  “I am a vampire.”

  “And I’m a witch. Now tell me how you outsmarted Teodoro.”

  Had they been alone on a cloudless night with wolves howling, his admission would have held more weight. “I am a vampire. That is why I cannot go to the police. Feel me.” She willingly wrapped her arms around him because she did not believe what he had told her. “What do you feel?”

  “You. Strong, manly.”

  “What else?”

  “You’re on the cool side. That’s old news.” She rolled her eyes. “What’s the big deal? I’m cold too and your joke’s wearing thin.”

  He wanted to deny his body. Instead, he rested his forehead against hers. “And now?”

  “Cool.”

  Perhaps for the last time, he kissed her. “And my lips?”

  “You know the answer. It’s not the first time I’ve noticed.” Her eyes filled with compassion. “Are you ill?”

  “No. I want you to look at me.” He filled her mind with silent words. “We will have to fight Teodoro and Remy in the jungle. They have outsmarted me. I cannot hide my secret or my shame from you any longer.”

  She pulled away. “How’d you do that?”

  “I am a vampire. There are many things I can do.”

  She placed her hand on his chest, slightly to the left where she felt life. “You’re alive. You’re a man. This is a very bad joke.” Annoyed, she snatched her hand away.

  “Feel it now.”

  For the first time fear surfaced in her eyes. She rested her hand over his heart. “It’s not beating.” She jumped up. “You’re scaring me.”

  “I am a vampire.”

  “No. They don’t exist and I saw you eat beef.”

  “Afterwards my stomach rebelled.”

  She looked into his eyes. “But, we made love.”

&n
bsp; “I do not know the rules for living undead, only the instincts that accompany my state of being. I am the only vampire I know, alone in the world. Vampire is what the people I have used called me, what I became when Ku’lanc finished with me.”

  “Ku’lanc?”

  “The cult’s vampire deity.”

  “Ridiculous.”

  “They called the sorcerer Ma’ta. He did not view it as ridiculous neither did I. It is heartbreak. I would not wish another to have my existence. I have brought none into my fold. All I know is I love you. Every day I fight to become more human. If regret were an anchor, mine would be so heavy that it could never be raised.”

  Tears rolled down her cheeks and she retched.

  “I have been alive for centuries. Until I found you, life had been torture.” His beloved backed away.

  “Why choose me?”

  “You startled me into happiness.” He restrained the caress he wanted to give her. Each terrible moment signaled she no longer saw him as a man.

  She spoke in anger. “So what do you call yourself?”

  He kept his voice low and calm for her reaction could only intensify as the truth settled. “Just a vampire.”

  “Where are your fangs?”

  “They are hidden until needed.”

  “How many people have you killed?”

  “Hundreds.”

  She slapped me, a sword piercing my flesh. “How could you?”

  “I grew ravenous, angry, and bitter. Until I learned to control my appetites, I am sorry to say I caused much heartache.”

  “Are you saying you’ve changed?”

  “In two hundred years I have not fed on any human.”

  She shook her head. “Disgusting. No matter how you word it, that’s never going to be okay.” She stood. “I know what films show about the undead. I just can’t. . . grasp the reality. I don’t want to. I’m going inside. Away from you. Away from this nightmare.”

  “You must see the real horror.”

  “No.”

  “Yes.” He could not reveal the worst of himself on a public beach. “Take my hand.” She hesitated as if his fingers had turned to worms. He carried her with him outside the rules of gravity to his vault. He waved his hand and the bronze sconces burst into life.