“It’s not possible,” I whispered.
“You’re not possible. Vampires are only in books, yet you’re here. Why can’t she be real? Why can’t a friend reach out from beyond the grave to help a person he cared about? Maybe even angels and devils are one and the same. Anything is possible. Even a condemned vampire finding the light, turning away from the darkness. Try it, and save both of you.”
With that, Edmund started to vanish.
“Wait, you’re dead. What will I tell Brenna?”
He smiled faintly. “She’ll know. Besides she’ll find arrangements have already been made. She’ll be able to keep the Tearoom running far longer than I can. Besides, she’ll have a good business partner. Take care of her for me.” With that, he was gone.
I gazed back over at the mural and the robed Goddess was back among her pillars of stone with a saddened expression on her face, as though she knew Edmund had passed on. I shuddered and then looked down at Brenna. What did she believe? Was Edmund right: was this her destiny? Did she know? I couldn’t answer those questions without being able to talk with her and to do that I had to bring her back to life. I had no choice. How could I give up the one I truly loved?
“All right little one, if it’s what you came here for, then so be it.” I repositioned her so her lips touched my neck. Praying it wasn’t too late I opened a gash in my throat. The warmth and stickiness of my blood welled up, seeping out upon her lips.
I locked my eyes with the Goddess on the wall and begged with all my might for her to send Brenna back to me. I needed her with me forever. I prayed for forgiveness for all of the sins I had committed over the years, for killing my sister and my parents. I asked for all their blood to be washed from my hands and for their ghosts to leave my house. I kept the house because I thought it was my obligation, but now I realized it was just a thing I didn’t need. It was a place of wood and brick that held old memories. My family had moved on and had already forgiven my sins. It was I who had to forgive myself. Just because I had become the thing I was didn’t mean I had to live my life in the shadow of that evil. That was what everything boiled down to: the final revelation of self, when all masks were off completely. It didn’t matter if it was a god or a goddess on a wall, as long as it was something above that forgave.
Brenna’s lips moved slowly against my neck, suckling like a newborn kitten.
My prayers had been answered. I had not lost the true thing I loved. She was going to be with me forever and always. I sighed as she began to tug on me harder. Her hand came up, encircling my waist, the other pushing against my neck to latch onto the wound more securely. She took mouthful after mouthful of what I had. I didn’t care that I grew cold, that my heart slowed down, that she was taking too much. I didn’t care because all the weight lifted off of me. I was free to fly with her beyond the mortal coil, and be with her in whatever realm she chose. Soon, I realized that to do that I had to teach her and show her the ways of our kind. I had to pry her off of me.
When I did look into her eyes, they were not black from hunger like all newborns of our kind. They were the clear, human eyes she had died with. The only things that hinted at her otherworldliness were the silver flecks dancing in her pupils like a kaleidoscope. I smiled to myself as I looked at the newborn, for a miracle had truly happened. A new vampire had been born this night, and she was like none the world had ever seen.
My name is Brenna
.
I took a breath, forcing myself to inhale. Somehow I had to prove I was truly alive, that nothing had changed, but everything was different. The air in my lungs tasted funny, particles of old sage lingered in the air as they stuck to the tiny air sacs in my lungs. I distinguished between the particles of dog dander as well as the regular household dust built up in the environment. All of this by taste and smell alone.
Opening my eyes, I tried to rid my mouth of the taste of stale blood. Then something caught my attention. My heartbeat was off. It was slower than it had been before. As I thought about it, it sped up and returned to its normal rhythm. My eyes focused, taking in the light. Everything was a myriad of colors, rainbows reflected off the pictures on the wall. I scanned the room, my gaze settling on the Saturn mural on the ceiling. Suddenly the mural was in 3-D with the shooting stars grazing the other planets and the rings of Saturn actually rotating. I blinked and the mural was flat, just paint on plaster.
I looked around the rest of the room and saw the transparent figures of ghosts leaning against the walls. Most of the spirits I didn’t know. One I saw wore a leather apron and held a hammer. I surmised he was the shoemaker who once inhabited the Tearoom. He looked upon me and smiled, then walked toward the rear of the Tearoom and vanished. I thought it odd to see him, but it was the other specter sitting in Edmund’s leather office chair who made my heart stop beating as I stared at it, or him, the ghost of Edmund. He was transparent at first, but then became solid. I smiled at him and knew somehow he had saved me. He nodded, still reading my mind, and then turned in the chair, picking up his deck of cards and pulling one out. He held it up. It was the Universe, a card that showed new beginnings, that anything was possible, that there was a world beyond this that both of us had stumbled into. I nodded, understanding the implication.
I’ll be with you always
, he whispered in my mind, and then he was gone.
My old friend had died, but he would be there if I needed advice or just someone to talk with. Even though I had crossed a different threshold of reality, I had not lost my psychic abilities. In fact, they had been enhanced in ways I wasn’t used to, but I could still see spirits and predict the future. Closing my eyes, I took a moment to compose my scattered emotions. Then the pain hit me.
It started in the pit of my stomach, working into my veins like molten lava burning through me, and I got the worst cramps I’d ever experienced. My thoughts, my rationality were breaking down. Something deep in the back of my mind stirred like a bat stretching its wings before taking flight into the night.
My awareness shifted, bones elongated in my hands, stretching the skin and muscle, turning my fingers into talons. My teeth grew, giving me a maw a lion would envy. My ears moved and the muscles danced in my back as something wanted to break out from under my skin. My face flattened and my jaw stretched, allowing room for all of my teeth. Pain coursed through me. I wanted to give myself over to it, to let the waiting beast into my psyche, but I heard a voice through the haze. Something I latched onto to save me. It was Veronica.
“Fight it, Brenna.”
Her voice was a light that gave me strength. The beast came out of the cave in my mind. I saw what it was we vampires truly were. Veronica was right. We were angels fallen from grace, shunned to embrace the darkness. I saw a beast with twisted horns, a maw of sharp teeth, and a furry black tail with wings of old leather. I didn’t believe in demons; I believed in acceptance and Fate. I’d chosen my destiny before I was born. Edmund knew this, just as I did. I stretched my hands out, taking a step forward until I had the demon in a lover’s embrace. Its claws ripped furrows in my back. It howled and screamed, struggling against me, but I held tighter as it thrashed, afraid of me, afraid of the emotions and the purity of my soul. I held fast, and after a moment it looked into my eyes, knowing I would not give up, and it bowed its head in acquiescence and then shattered. The beast disappeared, going back to where it had come from. The seed planted in my soul by Devon died. Even though I accepted the beast, it was still in my personality; I could control the demon. I had control over my own actions and didn’t have to listen to an alternate personality like all the other vampires. All my thoughts were my own. The space where it had been was occupied by both parts of my psyche. I had overcome my nature, while all other vampires embraced it.
My muscles stopped rippling, and my teeth returned to normal, except for my canines. My face shifted back to its original state, and my fingers and hands returned to normal. Yet, I knew I could draw my talons or the wings in my back at any time. I could even change my shape if I wanted to. The demonic blood had reshaped me, even though I didn’t answer to its call, so if I wanted I could take on the shape of the vampire. I was in control. I had the decision of who I would kill. Even as the beast had disintegrated, my hunger burned fiercer, seeping into every part of my body.
I untangled myself from Veronica’s arms, noticing how pale and lank she was. I had taken much of her blood, and she needed sustenance more than me. We both got up, but she stumbled.
“You have to feed,” I told her. My canines vibrated from the hunger pain.
“What made you the smart one all of a sudden?” she asked, trying to relax, but I saw behind the façade.
“I’m the psychic, remember?” I teased.
“Very funny. Let’s go!” Her voice grew hoarse as she let the beast into her nature. She began to walk out of the Tearoom when I grabbed her. She turned, growling at me, her eyes turning black as the hunger inked into them. I knew she hated her nature, fought against it for so many years, and just as she had given me strength she could embrace her beast as well.
“Wait.”
She took a breath. Her eyes brightened from black to midnight purple.
“What?” Her voice was garbled because her vocal chords had shifted.
I took her face in my hands, feeling the waxy texture, the coolness underneath, knowing this moment my flesh felt the same. With the same hunger rampaging its way through me, I pushed it aside to focus on her.
“Do what I did. Embrace your nature.”
She shook her head. “We’re different creatures, believe different things. We have been in blood and pain, but you accept this demon. It’s my punishment.” She wormed her way out of my grasp, but I caught her again.
This time when she faced me she was fully transformed, just in a matter of milliseconds. This was her true other half, Ronnie, birthed by Devon. Her hand wrapped around my throat, her talons cutting into my skin. She lifted me up so my toes brushed the floor. Her nostrils flared as she took in my scent. Looking into her eyes I knew this was the thing that had attacked me in New Orleans.
It licked its now black lips with a forked tongue. It didn’t matter if I was a friend, a fellow vampire. It only smelled the remnants of human blood on me. I was not going to let my existence end in its embrace. I had to get to Veronica’s buried personality. Gathering my dwindling mental strength, I threw my mind into hers. The beast was not expecting the attack so it dropped me, its hands flying to its head. I worked through the madness of its personality and hunger. I sensed something else in its twisted mind, emotion for me, which was strange. I didn’t linger on it and found Veronica huddled in a corner of her mind.
Help me
, I whispered.
She didn’t respond and the beast fought my invasion. It didn’t like being tested.
Is this how you want to look forever? You want me to die by this thing?
I took the image of her in bestial form and threw it back into her mind.
I shook my head, coming out of a daze, watching as the creature smiled and wagged its finger at me as if I were a child who’d disobeyed its mother. Then something happened.
The thing stopped. Its whole body writhed as if a thousand bolts of electricity ran through it. Muscles rippled and contorted. The features of the face went from human to animal to something in between. The wings withered like deranged flowers. And then it all stopped. Veronica crumpled to the floor and lay there. I crawled over to her and put my hand on her back, running it along her spine, feeling the tension of her muscles. As I took her into my arms, she relaxed and it was then she finally looked up at me.
Her eyes were not like they had been, not purple or totally black. Her pupils were dark blue, the irises dotted with purple and the whites of her eyes were gray, almost silver. Her face changed shape and was not as pointed, but more rounded, fleshier, more human. She looked into my eyes as tears moved out of hers, and she smiled.
“It worked!” she whispered. “It really worked.” She gazed at her fingers and felt her face, examining the changes. “You’re okay?” she asked, the innocence in her voice as sweet as any child’s.
I nodded. I knew it would work. I knew she could overcome her own fears and demons, no longer punishing herself for what was done so many years ago. She was so happy. She and the beast had accepted one another. Hopefully it would be for the better. Her joy radiated for now she was in control and no one could take that from her. Devon could no longer manipulate her. Even as we both shared in her joy, the pain and hunger I had suppressed overwhelmed me and I fell into Veronica’s arms, moaning. The look of joy was replaced by one of dread.
“Come, we must get you fed.”
Veronica helped me up and out of the Tearoom. She pressed the elevator button and hauled me in and out of it. I tried to move, but my legs weren’t functioning, just dragging along. She finally got me up and told me to stay, leaning against the cool glass front of the building. I closed my eyes, trying to let the temperature ease my burning veins, but no. I stood there, my vision blurring and my hearing becoming muffled.
“Here, little one. You must take her, or you won’t have enough strength to complete the change.”
I didn’t argue, even though I wanted to. I wanted to be the one to choose my first victim, but my body called out for food, something to keep me going, so that my dead cells could rejuvenate and kick start my system. I needed blood, and even though I had reconciled my nature, I had plenty of time to learn the ways of the hunt and to taste blood. Now all I wanted was the girl in front of me. I opened my mouth as Veronica pressed her against me. My teeth descended and I pushed them against the girl’s flesh, feeling her heart through my canines. I stood there a moment, hypnotized by the beating of life as it vibrated in my mouth. I knew this was what I wanted, what was underneath the surface.
My teeth pierced her flesh. I swallowed the first mouthful and the warmth spread throughout my system. As I tasted her blood I noticed there was an odd flavor to it. Almost like decay. I realized my prey was dying even before she came to my lips, but her life was better than coffee or hot chocolate as it warmed me. All of my nerve-endings came alive. The oily texture of my meal’s perfume clung to my upper lip and went up my nose, overwhelming my olfactory senses with a hint of musk. I almost sneezed, but my body processed the smell and evaporated it. The tiny fibers of my clothes dug into my skin. I longed to rub against the glass to scratch my back, but I knew it would do no good. Ducks flapped their wings on the water in the Boston Gardens about a half-mile from where I was, settling down for the night. I heard cockroaches scrambling though the walls in the building, trying to find places to lay their millions of eggs.
This was the life I had chosen before I had been born into the world as a human. Edmund had been right. Fate played a part in everyone’s life. I was destined to become a psychic, to feel compassion for humanity and understand their emotions. In that skill I could make a living in the enchanted and haunted city of New Orleans. With it I attracted and hypnotized Veronica while pretending to be the thing I craved all along, and she brought me into the life I had already set up.
The tarot card Edmund pulled had so much more meaning than I had anticipated. The Universe had given me a chance to plan my life, and now was my time to take my place in a universe created just for me. I had the time and the opportunity to do whatever I wanted, to go anywhere, to be with anyone. It didn’t matter because I was alive, or undead at least, and I had everything I needed.
The girl underneath me grew colder with each sip. My newborn hunger demanded I finish her, but I sensed that my body didn’t need all of her blood. There was something else, too. I couldn’t kill her. It didn’t seem in my nature to kill. I pulled away from the prey.
“I can’t,” I whispered. “I can’t kill her.” I looked up at Veronica for her approval.
“Why?”
“It’s not who I am. I can’t. You, you finish her.” I moved aside, knowing that Veronica had to feed as well.
After a moment of indecision, she acquiesced. She took up where I had left off. After a few moments, she had drained the girl. I picked the body up and scanned the streets, noticing the trash bins across the way. I stuffed her into one. If any passersby saw me, they thought I was a tenant dumping a bag of garbage. It was the image I projected, so they paid me no mind. They assumed I was going on about my natural business. I liked my new powers very much and would soon learn to love them even more as I grew into my existence.