“He’s a devil, Ryan! A devil!” Miss Robbins muttered under her breath.
“It’s Mr. Roman, Ellie!”
Roman sighed and rubbed his brow wearily. “I said I wouldn’t hurt you. I don’t want to hurt anyone. That is the primary reason I called you here.”
“To suck our blood! Mother of God, help us!” Miss Robbins cowered in her chair.
“Don’t you trust Roman?” Vanora asked, frowning.
“I don’t trust this devil in his guise!” Miss Robbins responded.
“Be quiet, Ellie!” Ryan said sharply. Slowly, nervously, he stood up. “Look, Mr. Roman, I feel really bad for you, but I’ve got to know. You’re not going to drain my blood, are you?”
“Ryan, I would never do that. I thought I’d made that clear in my story. I don’t want to kill humans for blood, but I do need it in order to have the strength to carry out my plans. That is why I need your help.”
“Do I have your solemn promise on your family honor that you won’t hurt Ellie and me?”
“I promise,” Roman said warmly, extending his hand.
Ryan hesitated, then, setting his thin lips into a determined line, shook hands with Roman. “Then I help you, the best I can.”
“You’re being a fool, Ryan!” Miss Robbins grumbled.
“Be quiet, Ellie!” Ryan stood up straight and tugged on his jacket nervously. “How can we be of service?”
“Well, we will need your protection during the day. Make sure that no one disturbs us in our rooms as we sleep, that sort of thing. Also, you once told me that your brother raises cattle for the slaughterhouse.”
“Oh, I see. You need blood for nourishment. Cow blood might do you nicely.”
“We’ll need to try it, but I think we should be able to survive that way. Some of the old legends speak of vampires attacking farm animals when they couldn’t get to humans,” Alisha said.
“My brother’s ranch is not too far out of Houston. I’m sure if I go and see him tomorrow, he’ll help us out. I may have to tell him the truth, you know.”
“Can you trust him?” Alisha asked worriedly.
Ryan grinned, flashing all his white teeth. “To tell the truth, he’ll be thrilled out of his mind. Our Pop always told us plenty of tales when we were growing up. I didn’t believe them, but my brother did. My brother believes in everything from U.F.O.’s to Nessie of Loch Ness. He’ll be thrilled. I’m sure of it.”
Miss Robbins was staring at her employers, her face contorted in her confusion. It was clear that she wanted desperately to believe that she was safe, but she was struggling with the fact that Alisha and Roman were no longer human. She fingered her crucifix nervously.
“Miss Robbins,” Alisha said gently, “if we ever act like we want to hurt you, just raise that cross and we won’t be able to go near you. If our intent is evil, anything holy repulses us. Besides, we won’t require you to be here in the evening after dinner. We would like you to stay here during the day with Vanora, fix her meals and look after her. After dinner is done and the dishes are cleared away, you are free to go.”
“Oh, well, I-” Miss Robbins faltered. She looked at her husband for support and he nodded at her encouragingly. “Well, I suppose that’s fine. The young one will need me now.”
“I’ll get you your blood every day. Say a gallon each?” Ryan asked, pulling out a tattered notepad.
Alisha looked at Roman, who shrugged.
“We don’t really know, actually,” Roman said after an awkward moment.
“Well, we’ll find out, won’t we? Anything else, sir?”
“We’ll be sleeping in our rooms. It’s best if you let us alone during the day. We’ll change our own bedding and leave out our clothes to be washed in the hall. I understand Miss Robbins’s discomfort, so I think it will be best if we keep our interaction minimal,” Roman said in his soothing tones.
“You’re a good man still, Mr. Roman,” Ryan said with a smile.
“That’s something I really wanted to hear. Now you will have to take Vanora to school in the morning also, Ryan.”
“That’s fine. Anything else, sir?”
“Round us up a couple of virgins each night,” Roman added with a wink.
Alisha snorted.
Vanora rolled her eyes.
Ryan chortled. “Yes, you’re the same, sir.”
“Is he joking?’ Miss Robbins asked anxiously.
“Of course, he is!” Alisha said, laughing.
* * *
Vanora listened to the adults talking while playing with the cards Roman had given her. A slow smile slid across her lips. All of the sudden everything seemed back to normal just the way she wanted it. Alisha looked so pretty and happy. Roman was smiling just like he always did. Only Miss Robbins didn’t seem like her normal self, but Vanora thought it was funny the way she kept crossing herself.
“See, everything is okay,” Vanora said aloud suddenly.
Roman gave her a loving glance. “Didn’t I promise that, Snow Pea?”
Alisha pulled her sister close and kissed her. “We’re together.”
“Forever,” Vanora added.
* * *
After all was quiet in the house, Roman in his study, Vanora tucked into her bed, the servants long gone, Alisha sat alone in her room weeping. For a short while, she had been able to convince herself that all was normal once more in her life, but it was now painfully evident that everything was different. From the way she looked to the way she felt within herself. She now understood the heights of euphoria and the depths of despair. There were no longer boundaries on her emotions. The invisible barriers that kept love from becoming obsession and anger from becoming a murdering rage had dissipated. Physically, she felt the growing intense power of her vampiric nature. In her despair, she had punched her hand through the solid oak door to her bathroom.
Now, staring at the splintered hole, Alisha started to sob again. Her entire body responded to her hopelessness and she fell over onto the bed, burying her wet face in the pillow. Every fiber of her being was shuddering with emotion.
A gentle hand rested on her shoulder.
“Alisha,” Roman’s voice said softly.
She gazed upward into the concerned face of her brother.
“I heard you crying,” he explained.
“I want to die, Roman. I can’t face this!”
Roman sighed as he sat next to her.
“I know I acted better for a while. I mean things didn’t seem so bad for a short time, but then I remembered! I remembered what I did!” Alisha pounded her fist against her chest. “I killed someone! I don’t deserve to live!”
“Ryan is going to get us animal blood,” Roman reminded her.
“Blood! Blood, Roman! Listen to you! Blood!” Alisha cried out, her fists clenched fiercely. “Blood! We need blood!”
Roman tried to calm her by patting her hand, but she sharply drew it away. “Don’t you see what has happened? What is happening? How can you be so calm?”
“Because I have to be,” Roman responded in a low, tight voice. “If I let the fear I feel overwhelm me, I won’t be able to function. I just can’t let it get to me. I am Roman Socoli no matter what else has changed. If I have to drink blood, so be it. Some people eat blood sausage and the brains of some animals, and they are mortals. We have to do what we have to do to survive.”
“I’m terrified of what I am! I’m afraid of what I am capable of doing!” Alisha exclaimed.
“You are Alisha Socoli!” Roman said vehemently, seizing her hands. “Alisha Socoli, my sister, that has not changed.”
Despair filled her eyes. “I’m not the same, Roman. Not completely. I feel it inside. If I embrace this new power completely, the power I feel buried within me, I don’t know what I will become. And that terrifies me!”
“Then never embrace it,” Roman said sternly. “I know I never will. Tomorrow I am going to contact Uncle Nicolau and ask for his help. I will keep a hold of my mortal life.”
>
“We can’t do this!”
“What do you want us to do? Lie in chained coffins until we rot away? Throw ourselves into a fire? Stake ourselves? Leave Vanora alone to be raised by Uncle Nicolau and Aunt Crystal? Tell me! Tell me what to do!”
Alisha lowered her head. “I do want to live...but not like this.”
“We won’t kill for our food. We won’t sleep in coffins. We won’t wander in the night like mindless zombies. We will stay here, in our house, sleep in our beds. You can continue to paint. You are not dead to the outside world. You can go shopping, go to the movies, visit friends--after the sun sets, that is. You are much freer than I am. I am dead to everyone out there. We can be with Vanora in the mornings before sunrise and be with her after sunset. We can live as we did before, just within limits.”
“I can paint,” Alisha said softly, clearly considering his words.
“Yes, just as you always have. You can continue with your career,” Roman encouraged her.
Alisha brushed the tears from her cheeks and forced a smile. Still trembling, she ran a hand through her blond hair. “I can make this work, can’t I?” she murmured under her breath, her face thoughtful. She scrambled off the bed and rushed over to her mirror. She gazed at her new, strange reflection and wiped the remainder of her tears away. “I’m still here. I’m still me,” she whispered. “I am Alisha Socoli.”
The darkness inside of her wanted to eat away her soul and twist her into something evil, but she would fight it. For herself, Roman, and for Vanora.
There was no other way.
Part III
Present Day
The darkness of night felt absolute around Vanora’s car as she drove toward Houston in the early morning hours. A steaming cup of coffee from an all-night gas station fogged up the windshield, and she flipped on the defroster.
Shirley Manson sang about being only happy when it rained, her voice pouring out of the car speakers. Vanora tended to listen to Garbage when anxious. Her pale fingers tapped lightly against the steering wheel. Though exhausted, she was determined to make the nearly three-hour trek back home before she lost her nerve and fled back to Austin.
Sipping more coffee, she was glad for the sweet rush of sugar and caffeine.
The headlights caught something large fluttering over the road ahead. It was too large to be an owl. Vanora slammed the Styrofoam cup back into the cup holder and leaned against the steering wheel, scanning the gloomy, overcast sky. Again, she saw a large shape swooping low over the trees.
Braking hard, she pulled the car onto the shoulder of the road, gravel, and dirt spewing into the cool night air. Her hand gripping the cross around her neck, she stared into the small area saturated by the light from the car’s headlamps. At the very edge of the light, there was something – or someone – standing in the gloom. She could barely discern the outline of the figure against the blackness of the night.
Was it Armando? Or was it HIM? The nightmare man who haunted her and was coming to destroy all she held dear.
“Armando?” she whispered.
The wild thumping of her heart battled with the beating of the drum in the song pouring through her car speakers.
“Armando?” she said louder.
The phone rang beside her, making her start. The screen revealed Armando’s number. Already the digits were burned into her memory.
She answered, her fingers and voice quivering. “Armando?”
“Drive,” he ordered. “Don’t stop again. Just drive.”
“Is that you in front of my car?”
“No. Now drive!”
Dirt, rocks, and dry grass bloomed into a thick cloud in front of the car and pelted the windshield. Vanora floored the accelerator and jerked the car back onto the road. Two shadowy figures hurtled past the passenger side of the car and vanished into the murk, filling her rearview mirror.
For just a second, glowing eyes gleamed in the glow of the car’s rear lights.
Gasping for breath, Vanora drove much faster than she should have along the winding road. Tall trees loomed over the road, obscuring the sky.
The phone rang again.
Vanora pressed the phone to her ear, her breath caught in her throat. “Armando?”
“I won’t let them hurt you. Keep driving,” he said.
For a second, she glimpsed him standing at the edge of the road, dressed all in black, watching the car speed past.
“You’re not alone,” he said. “I’m here.”
Her car hurtled onward in the direction of Houston.
17
For the next four years, the Socoli siblings lived their lives according to Roman’s plans.
Roman continued to have influence over the business matters of his company through his Uncle Nicolau. After seeing his recently buried nephew alive and well, it wasn’t very difficult for Nicolau to believe in Roman’s rebirth as a vampire. Also, he had been raised listening to his grandmother’s tales of a vampire within their own family and he was dismayed at the realization that all her wild stories were true. Saddened by the situation, Nicolau at first wanted to take Vanora to Austin to bring up with his own children but soon realized that she did not want to be parted from her brother and sister. So, their loving and loyal uncle vowed to assist them in any way possible.
After his revelation to his uncle, Roman dedicated his life to raising his youngest sister. After she was asleep, he spent hours collecting his thoughts on his evolving life as a vampire. Though he was saddened by the loss of his relationship with his girlfriend, he felt it best to not reveal himself to her and allow her to find a new love to build a life with.
Meanwhile, Alisha pursued her art career. Obsessed with painting the sun, sunrises, and sunsets, her ability to capture the beauty and harshness of light garnered the admiration of many art aficionados. According to critics, her paintings writhed with vivid emotions. Soon, her artwork was featured in multiple galleries in Texas.
Alisha enjoyed her success but kept her most disturbing paintings locked away. These were paintings that abruptly altered beneath her brush to become dark and menacing. One that was especially disturbing was of herself completely transformed into the epitome of a vampire. She had painted herself emerging from the mausoleum, dressed in white, hair swept back from her pale face, fangs bared and hands outstretched, seeming to reach out of the canvas. It was her secret pain, her secret fear. She kept it hidden with her other disturbing pieces, hiding it even from her brother. Roman was so pleased with how successfully he had fashioned a safe world around them, she was reluctant to share her deepest fears with him. Knowing Roman, he would worry that he was somehow failing her.
As for Vanora, she adjusted easily to her new life, seeing her brother and sister before sunrise and after sunset. It became normal and quite routine. Roman helped her with her homework and played video games with her, while Alisha drove her around to shop at the malls for new clothes and to the cinema to see the latest movies. It was easy for Vanora to forget what they’d become. They never showed that they were anything other than her loving brother and sister, except for the fact that she hardly ever saw them eat. Alisha could fake eating, drinking glassfuls of wine with her food, and throwing it up later. Alisha never lost her human desire for junk food, even when it made her seriously ill. Roman couldn’t stand to even look at food.
Ryan’s brother responded to Roman’s request by providing fresh pig and cow blood, and Roman paid him handsomely. Ryan didn’t fear his master and often stayed about after dark to play a round of cards. Miss Robbins finally stopped crossing herself continuously, even though a large crucifix was never absent from the chain about her neck.
“I’m only staying here for the child,” she would proclaim often.
Miss Robbins avoided Roman, but gradually warmed up to Alisha.
So their lives continued on in their small world they created for themselves, isolated from the mortal one around. Often Alisha and Roman would sit alone in Roman’s study and won
der if there were others like themselves, yet they were afraid to find out for certain. Would other vampires threaten their existence? There was no way of truly knowing. A year slipped by, then another. Then once more, their lives suddenly changed.
18
February 2005
Alisha stood in the snack aisle of Albertsons, studying her shopping list. Blond hair twisted up in a messy bun, she was clad in jeans with ragged cuffs, a wildly patterned slip dress, a crocheted shrug, and flip-flops.
“…and that is why we have to read Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire before the movie comes out,” Vanora was explaining while leaning against the shopping cart.
“Eh, kids always cheat on book reports by watching the movie. I did that with Romero and Juliet when I was your age.”
“Is that the one where they’re naked?” Vanora arched her pale eyebrows.
“Yep, the one that got banned at your school.” Alisha studied her list, then the shelf beside her. She was buying toiletries for Roman and he was very specific about what he wanted. She found his deodorant and tossed it into the basket. “I got to see it when I was in school, but that was before things got really…crazy.”
“Roman blames it on President Bush,” Vanora answered.
“Roman blames everything on the president,” Alisha laughed. “But Roman hates all politicians. God, I still remember his rants about Clinton.”
“Is it because of what happened to our grandparents in Romania?”
“Yeah, I think so.” Alisha leaned over and pushed Vanora’s glasses up on her nose. They were a new prescription. Vanora hated wearing her glasses, claiming her vision was just fine. Though she appeared to function well without them, Alisha was worried about her declining sight.
“Ugh!” Vanora slapped at Alisha’s hand. “Stop it.”
“You’re looking over them, not through them.”
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