Eternal Beloved

by Bella Abbott

  I let that sink in for a moment. I’ve been surrounded by vampires since I got here, and I had no idea. Something occurred to me. “I don’t understand. Why take the risk of shooting the film if you know there are hunters after you?”

  “I had no idea until last night.”

  I frowned in thought. “How do you think they figured it out? That you’re…special?”

  He smiled sadly. “You can say vampire. It doesn’t hurt my feelings. Or…we can come up with a code word. Cucumber. Mangrove. Whatever you like.”

  “I prefer special.”

  Jared nodded again. “Then special it is.” He shifted in the chair. “I don’t know how they discovered it. I’ve taken extreme precautions to leave no clues.” He paused. “Could be they had help.”

  “Help? What do you mean?”

  “I told you there’s a realm that mortals are unaware of. Some in that realm bear us grudges that go back eons. It wouldn’t be the first time one of them tried to cause us trouble using humans as their foils.”

  I tried a nibble of one of the muffins, made a face, and set it down by my coffee. Blueberry makes a good muffin; sawdust, not so much. “Another question. This one I really don’t understand. About your career choice. I mean, why take the chance of discovery by deliberately putting yourself in the limelight? With the singing, and now the movie? Why not be…” Who gets no attention? “Like a writer or something. Who lives in a shack in the woods.” I warmed to the idea. “You could have stuff delivered, and maybe one trusted friend who would be your connection to the outside world.” It was beginning to sound good even to me. Maybe I’ll be a writer someday.

  He sighed. “The truth? Pride and boredom, I suppose. It certainly isn’t the money. When you’ve been around as long as I have, amassing a fortune is ridiculously easy – I’ve already done so ten times over. Mortals behave in very predictable ways, and investing is child’s play when you understand how they react to bubbles and busts.” He looked directly at me, and even with the sunglasses muting the intensity of his gaze, I felt a stir deep within me. “But imagine being around for centuries, seeing the same things over and over – the same petty jealousies, the same rush to war, every day an unending stream of nearly identical sameness. Anyone would get bored. I decided that being a star might alleviate some of that, if only temporarily. For which I’m grateful.” He hesitated for a long beat. “Otherwise I would never have met you.”

  I blushed and looked away, although his words warmed me like an open fire.

  “So…you still have emotions?” I asked. “Even with no heart?”

  “Of course. That’s part of the curse of the condition. I’ve often thought it’s the universe’s ultimate revenge – to keep creatures who are intended to spend a relatively short time on the planet instead on it forever, subjected to recurring cycles of violence, genocide, avarice, superstition, hatred, oppression…and unable to change any of it for the better. And unable to have children or watch them grow up. Unable to be part of the world in a meaningful way. Think about what that’s like. The things that make life vital are made so by its temporal nature – because everyone knows that nothing will last forever. Remove that, and you have unending monotony, without respite or challenge.” He sighed. “I’ve often said that if it were possible to die of boredom, there would be no vampires.”

  I considered his words for a moment. “Being immortal and rich doesn’t sound so terrible from where I’m sitting,” I observed.

  Jared stared at me for a long time without speaking, and when he did, his voice was soft. “None of it means anything if you have to spend your life alone. Hell is caring for nothing while having everything…but with no one to share it with.”

  His expression was heartbreaking, and the pain in his voice palpable. I yearned to cradle him as he’d cradled me when I’d passed out at the brook, to hold his beautiful head in my lap and stroke away his suffering. I was sliding my chair back when his phone warbled from his jacket pocket.

  Jared stabbed the call to life and held the cell to his ear. He listened for several beats and then murmured a few words and hung up.

  “I have an address for the seer,” he announced. “In Bar Harbor.”

  “Who was that?”

  “Christina.”

  “Of course,” I said, regretting it the moment I said it.

  He studied me. “She’s a true friend, Lacey. She would do anything for me.”

  “That sounds like more than a friend,” I snapped.

  “She’s like a sister. We’re family. She’s the closest…of the, uh, the special…to me in the world. She and Carl.” He regarded me and stood. “You have no reason to dislike her. Believe me.”

  I thought for a moment. “Did I know her…before?”

  He shook his head. “She was made after.”

  “By you?”

  Jared frowned. “No.” He glanced at my barely nibbled muffin. “Let me know when you’re done.”

  “Is that your way of letting me know we have to go?”

  He laughed. “I have literally forever. But I thought you might want to learn the truth before time got away from us.”

  “Did she say anything about hunters?”

  “No. But she’s increasing security at the set.”

  “What about where you…live? Or where you stay when you’re not filming?”

  “I’m recording my album at an old mansion with a mobile studio I brought in. Nobody knows where it is but Christina and Carl. I’m doing all the tracking myself, and the band will come in once I’m done and lay their tracks down over mine, so I don’t even need an engineer. I find it easier to work that way than in a studio.” He walked to the window and adjusted his sunglasses. “That’s where I’m living, at least for now. There are six bedrooms. You should stay with me until I resolve this…this issue.”

  “I still don’t understand why I can’t go back to school, Jared. I’m nobody. If it’s you they’re after…” And what about when classes start again on Monday? Or what will happen to me if I fall behind?

  “I have no idea what these people will or won’t do, Lacey. There is no chance at all I’ll allow you to be in harm’s way with them out there. Christina told me that it’s quite the news around the campus that I’m seeing you, so it’s no secret. I can’t take the risk.”

  “What about what I want? It seems like you’ve got everything figured out, but you forgot to ask me,” I said, my voice harder than I’d intended. I bit back an even harsher comment and, instead, finished my coffee and stood. “I’m ready. How long will it take to get to Bar Harbor?”

  Jared must have seen the flash of anger in my eyes, because his face fell and he took a step toward me. “I’m sorry, Lacey. I didn’t mean it to come off that way. It’s just…you have no idea what you’re up against. I’ve been dealing with these things forever. This is all new to you.”

  As annoyed as I was about being told what to do, it was hard to stay angry at Jared for long. I decided that this wasn’t a battle worth fighting right now, and reluctantly extended an olive branch. “I’ll take your word about things for now. Let’s see what your seer has to say.” I paused. “But I’m going to need to pick up a few clothing items soon. I’m still mortal, so I don’t exude perfume or whatever it is you do.”

  That brought his smile back. “That’s one of the positives to being a vam…to being special, along with the eating and drinking. Our metabolisms are nonexistent, and what scent we produce has the peculiar characteristic of being irresistible to humans. Same with our appearance and our voices. It was a useful tool for captivating our victims back when we were predatory, but even now it has its benefits. That’s why we tend to appear attractive to everyone. It’s almost like hypnosis, only instantaneous. At least, for most. It doesn’t work on everyone.”

  “That explains you and Christina. But Carl…well…not my type.”

  He laughed. “Different strokes. Like I said – your mileage may vary.”

  We made our
way to the Porsche after dropping the room key in a box at the front desk, and I noted that he slowed when he was outside in the sun, his movements a bit less graceful and confident than earlier. He started the car, and we drove east toward Bar Harbor, at a more normal speed than the prior night.

  “As you probably guessed, I’m more deliberate when it’s light out. The sensory acuity I have after dark diminishes during the day, and my reflexes slow,” he explained.

  “I think I prefer this pace,” I said. He slipped his gloved hand over to my side and held mine until he had to shift, and the feeling of warmth and completeness from the prior night flooded my senses again.

  I glanced over at his hand. “Why the gloves all the time?”

  “You don’t miss much, do you?” He held out a gloved hand and considered it. “Mostly to avoid having you alarmed by how cool my skin is. I wasn’t planning on telling you my little secret last night, and I didn’t want to take any chances.”

  “That makes sense,” I acknowledged. I thought for a few more miles, watching the landscape fly by. “Why Maine?”

  “It’s not very populated compared to many places nowadays. And it’s overcast much of the year, which for obvious reasons is a plus for me. Oh, and it’s where my family settled before I was made, so I suppose there was familiarity to it for me…after.”

  “That was important?”

  “At the time. Now it’s mostly just habit. And because I know the entire state extremely well, I feel safer here than anywhere else.”

  “But now that hunters are on your tail…”

  “It doesn’t matter. They won’t get us. Maybe with someone less experienced they’d have a chance, but not against me.”

  We arrived in Bar Harbor, and Jared motored down a main street toward the waterfront, the dusty Porsche drawing stares. He found a parking place on a smaller artery, and we walked to the seer’s house, which turned out to be a dark, postage-stamp-sized two-story home on its last legs. A sign by the door announced Madame Véronique along with the hours she was available, with no other explanation. Jared and I exchanged a glance and he knocked, but there was no answer.

  “Maybe she’s out to lunch,” I suggested.

  “Maybe.”

  I looked around the run-down area. “Let’s find a store so I can buy some things while we wait.”

  He nodded. “Right. I almost forgot.”

  We wandered the main boulevard, which was crowded with tourists, and the first thing Jared did was buy a baseball cap for himself so he wouldn’t be recognizable. As we made our way up the hill from the water, he pointed out a tavern on the far side of the street. “You see that symbol above the door? The triangle with the moon inside? That’s a sign that it’s a gathering spot for supernatural beings – probably a portal to another plane.”

  “Are you serious?” I asked.

  “Of course. If we went inside, we’d be shown to a back room or perhaps an attic where the real attraction is. There are places like this scattered around much of the east coast and the south, which is why my kind tend to favor those areas.”

  I stared at the sign again, seeing if I could feel any mysterious vibes from it. Nothing. “Why’s that?”

  “These are ancient places. Three, four hundred years old. Back then, there was more appreciation for the spirit world, and far more practitioners than there are now. So they naturally became hubs for all types – witches, warlocks, seers, psychics, magicians, those who were drawn to or immersed in the dark arts from Europe and the Orient.” He smiled. “And of course, we special ones.”

  “But you said you made many enemies. Who, exactly?”

  Jared’s expression turned to one of obvious distaste. “The world of the supernatural isn’t one big happy family, Lacey. Within all groups there are rivals and factions. Even among the two royal vampire clans there are power struggles and feuds. And there have been more than a few sorcerers who wished to harness our energy for their own ends…and the easiest way for them to do so was by using our blood. These are evil creatures, Lacey. They would do us harm even today.”

  My eyebrows rose. “You have blood?”

  “More like sludge, but yes. In the hands of an adept it can be a source of tremendous power. For centuries, seekers have toiled to find the secret to eternal life, or the fountain of youth. It would be natural that they would look to the creatures who are effectively immortal for the answer.”

  “And…do what? Dissect you? Experiment on you?”

  His expression darkened further. “That and more, I’m sure. I don’t plan to find out.”

  I spotted a boutique and coaxed Jared inside. He was good-humored about it, helping with my decisions for several tops before I told him I needed privacy for more personal items. I made my purchases with the leftover money and wondered what it must be like to have as much wealth as I could dream of. Would it no longer have any value to me? Be just a means to an end? Most everyone spent their lives chasing pieces of paper with numbers printed on them. The idea of there being no scarcity of them for me to spend was almost as dizzying as Jared’s revelations about his special breed.

  Which stopped me. I’d been spending the day with a vampire, and it wasn’t all that different than if Jared were…normal. He’d been sharing his secrets with me without hesitation, and it didn’t feel that weird anymore to view things from his perspective. I had almost taken in stride his revelation that there were sorcerers in many cities who would kill to get their hands on vampires, and that there were hidden symbols to signal their presence to the initiated. None of it felt nearly as…crazy…as I would have imagined it might, and I wondered if I was still in some kind of slow-motion shock from the night before.

  One look at Jared waiting patiently outside the shop convinced me that, whatever he was, I was falling hard for him, and the more time I spent with him, the more difficult it would be to deny it to myself. But even more terrifying for me was that even though I now knew the truth about him, it didn’t change the way I felt.

  And eventually, that would lead down a road I wasn’t prepared to think about yet.

  “Ready?” he asked, and I was again struck by how gorgeous he was – not his looks (okay, yes, those too), but the radiance of his personality, his charisma…and his obvious tenderness toward me.

  This time it was I who took his hand. He seemed surprised for a moment, but recovered quickly. We walked along like an ordinary couple, not a celebrity vampire and a college coed, and I was again struck by how right everything felt.

  “Hey, look,” he said, indicating a storefront down the block with a loom in the display window. “Antique shop. Want to take a look?”

  “Sure.”

  The shop was crowded with furniture. The shelves that lined the walls were filled with treasures from the past, most at least a hundred years old and many two or more, by the looks of them. Jared walked slowly along the rows, and when the proprietor, an older woman with her gray hair pulled back in a ponytail, appeared from behind an armoire and asked if we were looking for anything special, he thanked her and told her we were just browsing.

  I stopped at a tall mahogany grandfather clock, puzzled by why I felt such a pull to it. Jared hung back and watched me, and then was at my side with a smile.

  “What do you think?” he asked.

  “It’s gorgeous. Really is.” I read from the tag hanging on the front. “Mahogany. Federalist Period. Circa 1798. Good working order with original weights and hourly strike movement.” I looked up at the painted face above the dial, where a depiction of a partridge sitting in a basket of flowers decorated the top, and then gazed back at the tag. “Oh, wow. Six grand. That’s quite a clock.”

  “I’m not surprised you like it,” Jared said, his smile broadening.

  I looked to him with a puzzled moue. “Why?”

  “Before…you loved grandfather clocks. They were a fascination for you.”

  My mouth dropped open. “Are you serious?”

  He nodded.


  I gave him another sidelong glance. “You could be making that up. I have no way of knowing if it’s the truth or not.”

  “We…special people…are incapable of lying.”

  “Really?”

  He laughed. “I could have a lot of fun with this if I wanted, couldn’t I?”

  I swatted his arm and resisted the urge to smile. “I should have known better.”

  His face grew serious. “Do you want it?” he asked. “The clock?”

  I looked at him, perplexed. “For real? And where would I put it? In the dorm? I don’t think so.”

  His expression clouded. “I’m assuming you might not be going back to the dorm anytime soon.”

  “Which we need to discuss, Jared.”

  He nodded. “Later. Let’s see if our seer is back from lunch yet.”

  We ambled along the sidewalk, the day idyllic even with the throng of tourists from the cruise ship in the harbor, and were nearly to the seer’s street when Jared froze and released my hand. His face twisted in pain as he bent forward, and he groaned and grabbed at his chest.

  “Jared! What’s wrong? Jared!” I cried, but he didn’t respond with anything but a long exhalation.

  “Are you okay?” I tried again. “Jared, talk to me!”

  He remained doubled over for a good half minute and then slowly straightened, his features clouded. He rolled his shoulders and stretched, and I stepped closer to him and whispered to him, “What’s the matter, Jared? What happened? Is it the sun?”

  He shook his head and stared at the cruise ship before slowly turning back to me, his normally full lips a tight line.

  “No. Not the sun,” he said, his voice strained.

  “Then…what?”

  “I…someone…someone close to me…it must be either Carl or Christina.” The corners of his mouth pulled down and his jaw clenched.

  “One of them has died.”

  Chapter 22

  “What do you mean? How can you know?” I stammered, trying to make sense of his words.

  “Believe me, I know. I told you – I can read thoughts if the other person is connected to me and is in an emotionally charged state. I…I felt it. I felt the knife, and the fear, and…rage. Fury.”