Real Vampires Don't Sparkle

by Amy Fecteau

  She curled onto her side, one hand fisting in Matheus’ t-shirt. “I didn’t find a lot. Luther the Mad, of course.”

  “Luther the Mad?”

  “Sixteenth century. Claimed to have visions, started a cult, thought he was the second coming of Protos. But, as I said, mad.”

  “I’m fairly certain I’m not insane,” Matheus said.

  Bianca let out a soft snore. Her knee dug into Matheus’ thigh; her elbow threatened to impale his pelvis. Stonings resulted in few bruises than a cuddle with Bianca.

  Matheus poked her shoulder.

  She started. “Was I talking?” she asked. “Oh, yes, Luther the Mad.”

  “You can sleep if you want,” said Matheus. “I don’t mind.”

  “No, I’m fine. Now, Herman White.”

  “The Mad?”

  “The alchemist. Nineteenth century. I found his notes.” Bianca shivered. “He was trying to stop the changing just before death. Never worked, I’m afraid; all the subjects died within days. But they did report especially vivid dreams before kicking it.”

  “Anything else?” Matheus asked. He nudged Bianca. She raised her head, leaving a trail of drool on Matheus’ shirt.

  “Maybe if I’d had more time, but there was that whole pesky maiming and near-burning.”

  “It’s okay,” said Matheus quickly.

  “The dreams aren’t connected with the claim,” said Bianca. She turned onto her back, and scratched under her shirt. The fabric rucked up on her torso, revealing the edge of the bandage. Bianca clawed at the tape with non-existent nails. “I checked.”

  “Are you sure you should be doing that?” Matheus asked.

  “It’s so itchy.”

  “Well, suffer in silence.” Matheus pushed Bianca’s hand away from her abdomen. He tugged her shirt down with a sharp jerk. “And stillness.”

  Bianca exhaled loudly.

  “Anything else?” Matheus asked.

  “Not much. You people don’t like writing things down.” Bianca’s head lolled to the side, her eyelids half-closed. “Oh, they’re plotting something, I can tell.”

  “What?”

  “The bears,” hissed Bianca. “No, don’t look. Then they’ll know we know.”

  Matheus peered at the bears out the corner of his eye. “I think you’re—Bibi?”

  “Gruk.” Bibi raised her head with a jerk. She glanced around the room, her dazed expression clearing as saw caught sight of Matheus. “It’s traditional, you know.”

  “Murderous teddy bears?” Matheus asked.

  “Nooooo,” Bianca clung to the long o like a long-lost love.

  “Claiming.” She giggled, the laughter shaking down through her body. “The stronger protects the weaker.”

  “What does the weaker do?” Matheus didn’t think he wanted to know the answer.

  Bianca made a loose fist and moved it back and forth, her tongue pushing against the side of her cheek.

  Matheus knocked her hand down.

  Bianca giggled more.

  “It’s not funny,” Matheus said.

  “Oh, don’t worry. It’s not com-pul-sor-y.” Bianca frowned and mouthed the word a few more times. “You’ll be able to find each other, or if the other is hurt, but that’s about it. No magic sexified mind control.” She paused, laughed again, then said, “The lusty stuff is all you.”

  “I’m pleased you find my suffering so amusing.”

  “Everything is amusing right now. I love everything. Except those fucking bears.” Bianca stabbed her finger at the vanity. “I’m onto you!”

  “Okay,” said Matheus. “I think we’ve moved beyond drugged up into full-blown lunacy.”

  “Hmm? No, no, I’m fine.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Mmm-hmm. Ask me something.”

  Matheus sighed. “Can Quin read my mind?”

  “Telepathy doesn’t exist, Mat. Don’t be silly.”

  “Right. Because the existence of people who turn into wolves is so realistic.”

  “Well. I’m real.” Bianca blinked at him, a slight wrinkle between her eyes. “Anyway, Quin might be able to guess your general mood, but Mat, love, your general mood is annoyed. It doesn’t take a claim to know that.”

  “A claim?” Alistair stood in the doorway, wet hair a tumbled mess, too-big shirt clinging to his chest and shoulders. He looked from Matheus to Bianca, then back. His lips parted a fraction; white showed clear around the bright blue of his irises.

  “Oops,” said Bianca in a small voice. Slowly, she pulled the duvet over her head.

  “You’re claimed?” Alistair asked. “By—by who?”

  Matheus crossed his arms, glaring at Alistair.

  “Who do you think?” he asked. Did Alistair think he went around like some kind of claim-whore, selling himself out to anyone with a working set of fangs?

  “Quin?”

  “No, the other violent psychopath I live with,” said Matheus.

  Alistair convulsed. He continued to look at Matheus, but distance clouded his eyes.

  Bianca peeked over the top of the blanket. “Alistair, I—”

  Alistair spun around, sprinting out of sight. His footsteps resonated down the hallway.

  “Bloody buggering fuck,” sighed Bianca. She gave Matheus a push. “Go on.”

  Matheus raised his eyebrows at her.

  “Go stop him before he does something stupid,” Bianca said. “I’m riding the morphine express, remember?”

  With a groan, Matheus hauled himself out of bed. He paused by the door, his shoulders slumped. Bianca made a shooing motion. Matheus resisted the urge to give the two-fingered salute. He trudged into the hall.

  “And be nice!” Bianca called after him.

  “Good luck!” Matheus yelled back.

  Matheus found Alistair at the door to the living room. One hand rested on the doorknob, his ear pressed to the quarter-inch crack between the door and the frame. He flicked his eyes to Matheus, then down toward the floor. With his other hand, he raised a finger to his lips.

  To hell with that, Matheus thought, and opened his mouth to speak.

  “It has to be one or the other,” Quin said.

  Matheus froze.

  “They were the only two in both places,” continued Quin.

  Alistair squeaked as Matheus squished against him. He slapped at Matheus’ arms; Matheus grabbed the back of Alistair’s collar and yanked. A short, hushed fight followed, ending with Alistair in a half-crouch, Matheus standing over him, both of them leaning toward the crack.

  “—isn’t Matheus,” Milo said.

  “Yeah,” said Quin.

  Matheus heard typing, then Milo cleared his throat.

  “The woman was injured,” he said.

  “And Alistair wasn’t,” said Quin.

  Matheus glanced down in time to see the top of Alistair’s head shoot upward. He jumped back, neatly avoiding a head-butt to the chin.

  “Alistair, wait!” Matheus’ fingertips brushed the back of Alistair’s shirt as he slammed open the door. “Shit!”

  Milo and Quin sat kitty-cornered to each other, Quin on the sofa, Milo in the armchair. Milo looked at Alistair’s face, closed his laptop, then sidled toward the other side of the room.

  “What is wrong with you?” Quin asked, head tilted to the maximum arrogance setting.

  Matheus covered his face with the palm of his hand.

  Alistair stood a few steps in front of him, his hands balled into fists at his sides, as rigid as a wire statue.

  “You bastard,” he said, stomping his heel into the pristine white carpet. “You unbelievable bastard!” He stomped again, harder. The knickknacks on the book-less shelves rattled.

  “What are you ta—” Quin ducked as a glass sculpture flew over his head, bounced off the wall painting, and crashed onto the floor. “Alistair!”

  “You think I betrayed Zeb?” Alistair screamed. “Go to hell!”

  He hurled another glass piece. It shattered on the coffe
e table; a dozen red and purple shards burst outward. Cracks spidered the top of the table.

  Quin surged to his feet. He started across the room, then stopped, wincing as he stepped on the scattered bits of glass. Balancing on one foot, he raised his other leg up and picked out the tiny pieces.

  “Be reasonable,” he said, examining the carpet before putting his foot down.

  “Reasonable!” Alistair groped for fresh ammo. “I’ll show you reasonable, you son of a bitch!”

  “Here,” said Matheus, handing Alistair a candlestick. “Aim for his head.”

  “Sunshine!”

  “What?”

  The candlestick bounced off Quin’s shoulder. “Damn it!” he yelled.

  “Try again.” Matheus passed Alistair the second of the pair.

  “Stop helping him!” Quin darted forward and snatched the candlestick out of Alistair’s hands. “What has gotten into you?” he asked, waving the candlestick back and forth.

  Alistair’s face trembled, and for one terrifying minute, Matheus worried the waterworks were about to start. Instead, Alistair shot a finger toward Matheus.

  “Him! You claimed him!” Alistair had to crane his head back to look at Quin. His other hand formed a fist, beating against his thigh. “You didn’t even know him! I was with you for ten years! I did everything you wanted! You fucking bastard!”

  Matheus was impressed. Alistair made the word bastard sound like a smiting from Jehovah himself.

  “Alistair, calm down.” Quin folded his arms, the candlestick still in one hand.

  “Rot in hell!” Alistair swung at Quin, staggering as his knuckles met only air. He growled and launched himself at Quin.

  Quin sidestepped to avoid Alistair. “Calm yourself or I will do it for you,” he said.

  Two different futures rose in Matheus’ mind. One involved scooping brain matter off the carpet. He opted for future number two.

  Hooking an arm around Alistair’s waist, Matheus dragged him from the room.

  Alistair snapped out his fangs, biting the air in lieu of Matheus’ limbs. He kicked his heels on Matheus’ shins, aiming with eerie accuracy for the sweet spot that vibrated the entire bone.

  Matheus grunted; the fuck-it threshold approached rapidly. He manhandled Alistair into the hallway, thrusting him toward the kitchen doors.

  Alistair whirled around, and ran into the arm Matheus held across the doorway. He leaned forward, delivering a glob of spit to Quin’s cheek a second before Matheus yanked the door closed.

  “Ew,” said Matheus. “Was that really necessary?”

  “Yes!” Alistair shoved open the doors to the kitchen.

  Against his better judgment, Matheus followed him.

  Alistair circled the gleaming marble island, his reflection blurred in the brushed metal appliances. A small, flat-screen TV hung on the wall; the refrigerator door contained a touchscreen. Alistair muttered to himself as he paced, too low for Matheus to understand.

  Matheus pulled out one of the barstools concealed under the island and sat down, propping his chin in his hands.

  The sink had a tap, but no knobs, Matheus noticed. He wondered how to turn on the water. Psychic vibrations? Arcane hand signals? What if he wanted to adjust the temperature? Matheus didn’t consider himself a Luddite. He had a laptop; at least, until last night he had. He appreciated the handiness of smart phones, but he had his limits, and one of those limits was removing perfectly acceptable knobs and replacing them with confusion.

  “Why are you glaring at the faucet?” Alistair asked, slowing to a halt.

  “None of your business,” Matheus said. “Are you done?”

  Alistair curled his upper lip.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Go get Quin and see if I claw his eyes out.”

  “Maybe later.” Matheus kicked out the other stool, inclining his head in its direction. He watched Alistair perch on the edge of the stool, his hands balled in his lap.

  “You don’t have to stay here,” he said after a few minutes. “I’m not going to do anything stupid.”

  “Said every person ever just before they jumped into the cage with the tiger.”

  Alistair didn’t respond.

  Matheus waited, then crossed to the refrigerator, fiddling with the settings on the touchscreen. He accessed the inventory list and scrolled though, wondering if someone took to the time to record everything put in or taken out, or if the fridge just knew. Was encouraging the future robot uprising really worth the ability to check how many tomatoes were left without opening the door? Maybe the door required the force of ten men to open it. Matheus pulled on the handle, and surveyed the contents. Nope, he thought.

  “You think I’m being ridiculous,” Alistair said.

  “You don’t know what I think.” Matheus closed the refrigerator door and turned around.

  Alistair seemed to collapse from the waist, bending until his forehead hovered an inch above the countertop. He exhaled, his breath fogging the marble.

  “I think I’m being ridiculous,” he said. “What is wrong with me?”

  Matheus resisted smacking Alistair’s face into the counter. Be nice, he thought. What would a nice person do? Awkwardly, Matheus leaned across the island and patted Alistair’s shoulder with his fingertips.

  Without moving his torso, Alistair lifted his face giving Matheus one of the best are you fucking kidding me? looks Matheus had ever seen. Matheus wondered what Alistair’s nose would look like smooshed across his face.

  “Do you mean what is wrong with you that Quin doesn’t want to run off into the sunset and adopt poodles with you? Or what is wrong with you that you act like a crazed, bunny-boiling stalker?” Matheus asked.

  Alistair’s eyes narrowed. “Why the hell are you here?” he asked, falling into a slight pout.

  “I’m comforting you,” said Matheus. “There, there.”

  “Your mere existence makes me want to vomit,” said Alistair. “Your presence rubs my nose in everything I want and can’t have. You are the last person I want to see right now. If the opportunity arises, I will gleefully push you over a cliff.”

  “Please, don’t thank me,” Matheus said. “Your torment is reward enough.”

  Alistair’s pout deepened. He engaged Matheus in a brief, but harrowing staring war.

  Matheus emerged the victor, but only through deceit and trickery. He remained subdued in triumph, honoring those lives lost on the field of battle. Alistair’s gaze retreated to the countertop to rebuild.

  Matheus went through the cabinets, scanning packages of food. They might as well have been carved from granite for all the good they did him. The cabinets did not have touchscreens. Matheus felt like an old-timey pioneer, using actual handles on actual boards with actual hinges.

  “I was married,” said Alistair.

  Matheus dropped the container of Cup-a-Noodles he was pretending to read. “To Quin?”

  “No. Moron. To my wife.”

  The Cup-a-Noodles rolled over the tiled floor, dried pasta and dehydrated veggies rattling.

  “You had a wife?” Matheus asked.

  “I married in nineteen-forty-seven,” said Alistair. “Twenty years before the Stonewall Riots.”

  Stonewall sounded only vaguely familiar to Matheus, but his grip on twentieth-century history was somewhat shaky. He liked his history to have some distance.

  “Did you have kids?” he asked, because he’d be damned if he admitted ignorance to Alistair, of all people.

  “No, no kids. Angela wanted kids…. We did have a nice little house.” Alistair gave a one-shouldered shrug. “Then Quin showed up and said come with me. So I did.”

  Matheus bent down and scooped up the Cup-a-Noodles. He returned it to the cabinet, closing the door with a sharp click.

  “You just left?” he asked the sleek, honey-colored cabinet. The cabinet, being an object with neither the intellectual capacity nor the physical ability for speech, did not reply.

  “Don’t tell me you
didn’t do the same thing,” Alistair said.

  “I was jumped in an alley.”

  “Of course. You were an innocent bystander shanghaied into this wicked lifestyle. I completely understand. No wonder you look like you want to strangle me every time I get within twenty feet of Quin.”

  Matheus turned around to see Alistair give him a brilliant smile. “No,” said Matheus. “I want to strangle you all the time. Quin’s proximity is irrelevant.”

  “Oh.” Alistair split the syllable between a rising and falling tone. “Darling, I had no idea.”

  “I—what—no!”

  “It’s perfectly fine. We all have our little…quirks.”

  “That is absolutely not what I meant!”

  Alistair straightened, leaning into the island, the outside light hitting his eyes at just the right angle to turn them into reflections of cloud-less day. His smile practically purred. Alistair went through life as though cameras lurked behind every corner.

  “It’s because you’re a disgusting sycophant,” Matheus wished he’d opted for future number one. Sure, brain matter was impossible to get out of carpet, but that was a small price to pay for the removal of the last three minutes.

  “You’re jealous,” said Alistair.

  “I’m not gay.”

  “Come on. It’s the new millennium. You’re allowed to be gay. Maybe not in small towns in the South, but this is the liberal North. Embrace your love of cock.”

  “I. Am. Not. Gay.” Matheus slapped his palm on the counter, punctuating each word. He glared at Alistair, still in his photo-shoot pose, bright, perfect smile screwed onto his lips.

  “There’s nothing wrong wi—”

  “I know there’s nothing wrong with being gay,” Matheus said loudly, as though more volume equaled more truth. “I’m just not, okay? Leave it alone.”

  Alistair angled his head a fraction, scanning up and down Matheus’ frame, pausing briefly on his face, then down to where Matheus clutched the edge on the sink in a death-grip.

  “Nuts,” Alistair said. “You might as well have bottom printed across your forehead. Why don’t you do yourself a favor and jump Quin. I doubt he’ll say no.”

  “There’s something wrong with you,” Matheus said.