Twice Bitten

by Diana Greenbird

  I chuckled to myself, looking up at the ceiling. Well, at least if I had to die, I’d finally experienced what real romantic love felt like. That had to be a positive, didn’t it?

  22

  Like I’d adapted to every other situation life threw at me, living in the cottage became my new normal. It only took several days for Blaise to get over her hostility towards me. It had more to do with me being the only other person in the house who had normal habits like eating, sleeping or going to the toilet than anything else.

  She had changed her resentment (I could only assume that’s what it was) to being annoyingly patronising. Like, not only was she doing me a massive favour by saving me from a gruesome death by the hands at the Mors Exercitus, but she was also so much more experienced in the world of the lamia and therefore I was a veritable child. I wanted to punch her every time she called me “kiddo”. Emerson thought it was hilarious. Until I started calling him “old timer”.

  Days had passed, and still I hadn’t admitted to him the feelings I had acknowledged myself. I wasn’t sure I could. There was no way for me to know that Emerson’s interest in me wasn’t purely to do with the magic that tied us together.

  Whilst I didn’t mind admitting to myself that I loved him now that I knew there was no danger in it, I couldn’t face the sheer embarrassment that would befall me if I admitted it to him – only to have him reject me. Even if he didn’t reject me, I couldn’t stand the thought of him playing along, pretending he felt something he didn’t, so I would stick around. I was the key to changing him back into a witch and the only thing that stopped his dissociation in the meantime. I would never know how he really felt until those things weren’t true.

  Emerson and Charlotte had gone for a walk around the country fields. Trying to find a decent signal in this area was a pain; you tended to have to walk at least three country lanes away to get two bars. It’d taken them an hour to have a ten-minute conversation with Grayson a couple days ago. Which meant I had, oh, another twenty minutes of torture being stuck alone in the house with Blaise. Not that I was watching the pendulum clock on the wall swing the seconds by like it held my salvation at the end of it or anything.

  ‘I’m bored,’ Blaise said, collapsing on the sofa and wrapping herself up in the patchwork blanket that was thrown over the back. The fire had been lit, so it wasn’t cold. I took that as a sign that she was settling in.

  ‘I thought you had college assignments,’ I said, looking up from Mill on the Floss.

  The cottage had a small bookcase by the side of the log fire filled with hardback Classic Penguin books. I hoped that the worn clothbound covers meant that they were well loved and not placed there to be used as fuel if we ran out of wood.

  ‘I’ve got until mid-January and I’ve done all my reading.’ She peaked at the cover. ‘Do you not have any more modern tastes?’

  ‘No, and if I did that would be unlucky considering the most modern choice I’m offered is pre-First World War.’

  Blaise leaned her head against the sofa, her long hair cascading down the back. She stretched. Then yawned. Then started picking at the corner thread of the armrest which was coming lose.

  ‘What’s up?’ I asked.

  ‘I’m bored,’ she repeated.

  ‘You can be bored in any other room in the house.’

  ‘Yes, but any other room in the house doesn’t hold my only form of entertainment.’ I stared at her, blankly. ‘You.’

  I scoffed. ‘I’m not entertaining you.’ I went back to reading. Until she threw a sock at my head. Her sock. Which she had been wearing.

  ‘That’s disgusting,’ I said, picking it up with my fingertips and dropping it on the floor. She could get it herself if her foot got cold. ‘And childish.’

  ‘Tell me about Em-son,’ Blaise said.

  ‘No.’

  Blaise refused to call him anything other than the childish way she’d pronounced his name when he had been with their coven, being rehabilitated from his time fading after the war. She had been born, learnt to speak and walk, around her Em-son. And then, one day, he had moved on. She, apparently, hadn’t.

  ‘I’ve not seen him for years, but he’s… different. That’s unusual, isn’t it? For vampires to be different.’

  ‘I wouldn’t know. I’m not any sort of expert on lamia, am I?’

  ‘He looks the same, and Charlotte’s still tagging along like a bad smell. But he seems… happier?’

  ‘He’s a true joy,’ I said, sarcastically.

  I’d read the same line three times now. If I read the same “what novelty is worth that sweet monotony where everything is known and loved because it is known?” one more time, I was going to throw the book at her.

  ‘Maybe I’m remembering him differently because I was only little when I saw him. But I have an excellent memory-’

  I threw the book at her.

  ‘Bitch,’ she swore under her breath.

  I hid a laugh.

  ‘If you talk to me, the next time I go shopping I’ll let you choose what we buy for groceries.’ She should have tried bribery before.

  I crossed my legs underneath me in the armchair. ‘Fine. What do you want to talk about?’

  ‘You and Emerson: are you dating?’

  ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘But you’re bonded by that… spell?’

  ‘Yes.’

  I hadn’t told anyone else the full extent of our bond: the coven in England that had shortened the fate lines to make us meet via killing off my parents. Everyone only knew that Charlotte’s spell had latched onto the Morgan bloodline due to our family’s magical link. Not that I had been specifically selected by fate to end Emerson’s cursed existence as a vampire in this lifetime.

  ‘That’s your only connection?’

  Did she somehow know about the fate secret I was keeping from everyone? I didn’t actually know the extent of Blaise’s powers.

  ‘We’re friends,’ I said, hedging my answer.

  ‘With benefits?’ No. Okay, so she had no clue about the fate. She was just circling back to the “dating” idea. Perhaps it wasn’t just everyone in high school who was obsessed with who was dating who. Maybe it was just a… thing.

  I gritted my teeth. ‘Do you really want to know?’

  Blaise looked like she was thinking about it for a moment. ‘No. I don’t believe you’re just friends, anyhow.’

  I shrugged. That was her prerogative.

  ‘If the Order manage to catch the Mors, what’s your plan?’

  ‘I’ve not really ever thought about long term,’ I admitted. ‘Before we had to leave Seattle, I hadn’t-’ I stopped myself from saying “fallen for Emerson”. ‘Hadn’t, urgh, thought much about what I’d do with my life after graduation.’

  ‘You and Emerson didn’t talk about the future at all? Not even to figure out if he’d be sticking around?’

  ‘I’m used to being alone. I never saw myself with anyone. Friends don’t stick around long term when it comes to me.’

  ‘Besides the boy who went to prison for you.’

  I clutched my hands tight into fists. ‘Yes.’ I didn’t want to know how she’d found out about that. ‘But it wasn’t romantic between us. I wanted him in my life because he was my best friend. Not because I had this vision of marrying him and having his babies.’

  ‘Which would be impossible for you to do with Emerson.’

  ‘Because he’s a vampire.’

  ‘No, because you’re not lamia.’ Blaise gave me that same condescending look I’d seen on numerous occasions over the past few days. She said the next few words slowly, like she was speaking to an idiot. ‘Vampires can have children – with witches or other vampires. They just… don’t.’

  Blaise might call me “kiddo”, but it looked like I was more informed about the inner workings of the vampire mind even if the extent of my Blood World knowledge only came from pieces of the Grimm files or Ali’s warnings.

  ‘The way the Sons speak ab
out turning, it’s as though time doesn’t really work for vampires anymore. As soon as they turn that’s the factory re-set for them.’

  Blaise actually looked interested, like I wasn’t saying something she already knew. She leaned forward slightly in her seat.

  I continued. ‘They might experience new things, but they’ll always go back to however they were before they changed. Since most vamps change at eighteen, they wouldn’t exactly have been thinking about being parents at that age. So, they never will.’

  ‘Huh,’ Blaise said.

  Blaise had officially pulled me out of the escape that was George Eliot’s world. My mind started spiralling to thoughts I’d been trying to put off. The future. Emerson. Love.

  What would happen if I did stay with him? Would he still like me years in the future? Love me, like Christian believed he did? Or would he grow close to Charlotte again – choose her as the lamia partner he could have a baby with? Where would I fit in with that plan? Without me, he wouldn’t be connected to his baby. So, I would just have to tag along? The awkward emotional fluffer on the periphery of his perfect life until I aged and died?

  Blaise unwrapped one of the lollipops from the candy bowl on the table beside the sofa.

  Emerson would always want me in his life because I was the only way he could stay connected to his memories. It would be impossible to leave him without some form of fate putting me right back in his path. Our bond would always draw us together until I completed the spell. But I had no way of knowing how to do that.

  ‘There was a witch I met back in Seattle who could see the threads of spells. Do you know any witch in your coven who can translate threads to know how a spell works?’

  ‘You want to try and complete the spell that’s working on you – so Emerson can become a witch again?’ Blaise said, guessing where our line of conversation had led my mind.

  ‘He’s reliant on me right now to live normally. He never wanted to be dissociated from life. If we found a way to complete the spell, then he wouldn’t have to be bound to me anymore. He could age – mentally and physically. He’d have his choice back.’

  ‘You want to complete the spell for him, or because you’re afraid if you don’t find a way to complete it, the spell will find its own way that won’t end well for you?’ Blaise asked, sucking on the pop.

  ‘My whole life has been a series of this won’t end well,’ I said. ‘I don’t care about that. For all we know, the spell won’t even end with me and when I die, it’ll just pass on to someone else who moderately fits the criteria and Emerson will have to wait another century…’

  But I knew that couldn’t be the case. Not with the bond between me and Emerson ensuring that it was now, with me.

  Blaise’s mouth downturned. She didn’t even take a pause to consider it. I realised her question had been as much about her own curiosity as it had been putting off the bad news.

  ‘Sorry. It doesn’t work like that. Only the witches who cast the spell know what mechanics go into completing it, or how the actual spell will turn out. There’s still a chance that the Universe will help you complete it on its own that won’t turn out badly,’ she said. ‘It’s worked to get you this far, hasn’t it and you’re both alive?’ With a million of Death’s failed attempts beforehand.

  Disappointment washed over me. But that was only the opinion of one witch. I mean, she was much, much saner than the last one I’d met, but maybe out there was a witch who’d be able to help find the blueprints to the spell Charlotte’s coven had cast and we’d be able to figure something out.

  Blaise took my silence as a form of anger or resentment against her for what she’d said, not that I was deep in my own thoughts.

  ‘I have a boyfriend,’ Blaise said. ‘And he’s thinking of turning. That’s why I was asking; not to poke fun of you and Em-son.’

  ‘You have a boyfriend?’

  She narrowed her eyes at me. ‘I do have a life outside of protecting your arse.’

  I knew that. She complained enough about having to do remote learning. It just seemed so… ordinary. A boyfriend. I’d started to think that all lamia had as complicated relationships as me and Emerson.

  ‘I just… want to know what it would mean for us.’

  I thought about Charlotte who had loved Emerson before she turned. No matter how many flings she had, or her relationship with Grayson, Emerson was her guy factory-reset. For Blaise’s guy, if he loved her now, that was it for him. But she could easily move on and change as she grew.

  ‘Not to be a cliché, but how would you think it would work with the age gap? You’d be dating a teenager in your forties… fifties.’

  Blaise shrugged it off, waving her pop in the air. ‘Witches age slower than humans. We always look younger and it’s hardly an issue these days. Cougars are all the rage, it’s not just sugar daddies out there, kiddo.’

  I was surprised by how blasé she was about it. I never thought about long term, not with how many near-Death experiences I had, but if I was a normal person with hopes and dreams, how could you not over analyse the massive decision that would be staying the same forever?

  ‘I’d totally be into having Liv as my sugar momma,’ Emerson said, appearing on the armrest beside me.

  ‘Jesus Christ!’ I swore.

  ‘Just me, love,’ Emerson grinned, kissing me on the top of my head, and moving out of the way just as my hand caught his chest mid-whack.

  ‘One of these days I’m going to murder you,’ I muttered under my breath, holding my chest as if to keep my heart from bursting out.

  ‘Joel’s thinking of turning?’ Emerson asked Blaise, ignoring my threat.

  She opened the blanket for him to cuddle up with her. He raised an eyebrow at me, as if to ask whether I would be okay with that. I flipped him off, my heart still beating fast in my chest from his surprise appearance. He sat next to her, but didn’t join her inside the quilt.

  ‘He’s got no family,’ Blaise told Emerson, about her boyfriend. ‘It was just him and his dad, but he died of cancer a couple years ago. His mom died when he was younger, too. Joel’s terrified of it all ending. He’s sort of seen it all – the slow and terrible decline – and doesn’t want that for himself.’

  Emerson nodded, pretending to understand. All Emerson had ever known was the gruesome, sudden end to life. His coven slaughtered. Charlotte’s coven taken the same way. Then the First World War. He was in the unique position of being a vampire who’d never actually experienced what it was like to see their mortal loved ones naturally reach the end of the life.

  ‘I’ve always wanted to know: how does the change work?’ Blaise sucked hard on the lollipop. Her brown eyes were shining as they often were, mischievous and sincere all at the same time.

  Emerson tensed next to her. His own transformation triggered bad memories. I didn’t think that Emerson was going to answer, but besides reading, boardgames and the five channels on the TV, there was nothing else to do other than talk and he didn’t have any qualms about entertaining Blaise.

  ‘How much do you know about caterpillars?’ Emerson asked.

  Blaise took out the lolly with an echoing pop from her mouth. ‘That they’re hungry?’ she said, a play on the kid’s book A Very Hungry Caterpillar. I had a feeling it was a call-back to some memory of him reading it to her as a kid.

  Emerson shook his head, the same way he did when he was exasperated or waiting for me not to be sarcastic.

  ‘When a caterpillar goes into its cocoon, it dissolves into a goop and reforms into a butterfly.’

  I tried not to laugh at Emerson saying the word “goop”.

  ‘That’s sort of what happens with a vampire. Our skin changes first, becoming a hard shell – like the cocoon and then the venom works through our body, breaking down the cells into stem cells and then re-forming them.’

  It had been a while since I’d read the Grimm files, but I recalled that part of Cassidy’s research.

  ‘A vampire is a completely dif
ferent person to the lamia they once were, then?’ Blaise asked.

  ‘You’d think, since every cell of us is re-made, but like with caterpillars that’s not the case. Scientists did a shock-therapy test with caterpillars, essentially making them terrified of a certain smell by shocking them each time so eventually they associated the smell with pain.

  ‘After the caterpillars became butterflies, the scientists exposed them to the same smell, and they reacted negatively – because they remembered the same thing. Somehow, within the goop, the memory remained intact. It’s the same with vampires.

  ‘Even though our lamia bodies were broken down into single cells within our “cocoon” our personality, memories, everything that made us us still exists within. And the ironic thing is that our pre-vampire self is the most dominant version of ourselves. No matter how much time passes, our minds always go back to the default setting of what we were like when we were turned.’

  I tried to hide my smugness that he basically said what I had just told her several minutes ago. I wasn’t so out of my depth with the lamia world now, was I?

  ‘That’s how Circe was able to trace Charlotte’s energy back to who she had been as a witch?’ I asked.

  ‘Exactly why,’ Emerson said.

  ‘Speaking of, where is the annoying little pixie?’ Blaise asked.

  ‘She said something about reorganising your wardrobe to make room for her stuff,’ Emerson said, offhandedly.

  Blaise’s face paled. ‘That little bitch-’ she muttered under her breath before she ran off upstairs.

  Emerson smiled at me like a conspirator. This hide out business could have been a whole lot worse, I supposed.

  *

  ‘We’re going Christmas tree shopping,’ Blaise grinned, piling on the layers. The jacket was first, then the overcoat, scarf, earmuffs then mittens. Even in a thousand layers she looked like a model.

  She’d been exceptionally quiet all day, letting me and Emerson simply read in comparative silence by the crackling fire and Charlotte – do whatever Charlotte did. We hadn’t heard from Grayson in almost a week since Charlotte and Emerson had gone off to get an update from him. I was taking no news as good news and putting the Mors Exercitus, and our life back in Seattle, to the back of my mind.