The Fertile Vampire (11 page)

“What about the ones who are turned without prior permission? What if they’re not born with talent or skill?”
 

“All those who are turned without permission are considered aberrations. However, if it is deemed they have some discernible talent, they are allowed to live.”
 

I stared at him, feeling my lips go numb.
 

“Don’t the police have something to say about that?”
 

“Once they are turned, they are out of mortal control,” he said, his voice never altering in timbre, sounding warm and relaxed and sexy. “As vampires, they are under the Council’s jurisdiction.”
 

I was thirty-three years old. In those thirty-three years I’d felt threatened and in danger. The time I had to have an emergency appendectomy, for example. When I left Bill and was trying to get on my feet financially was another. Through it all, in every scenario, I’d never been viscerally afraid. I knew medical science would heal me, that I would eventually come out of the money pit I’d dug for myself.
 

Now?
 

Now my world had been turned on its axis effortlessly by the vampire sitting in my living room. Now I was clammy with fear and nauseous with it, recognizing my existence was a brief, flickering candle and he could blow it out on a whim.
 

Evidently, the VRC was not only used to help newly turned vampires, but to snuff out the lives of those who weren’t deemed worthy.
 

Meng had been turned without permission, but he was a software engineer. Kenisha was a cop. What did I have? The ability to negotiate? Tenacity when working a case? A fierce desire to see justice done? An affinity for stupid movies and reading two hundred books a year?
 

“Why did you allow me to live?” I asked, surprised my voice sounded so calm. “I don’t have any talents.”
 

I straightened, put the wineglass down on the nearby table.
 

“Unless my oddity is my talent. The fact I can call you and live without blood. What else can I do?”
 

“There are two types of Kindred,” he said. “One is blood based. The other feeds from spirit. The first is much more common than the second. The Pranic do not occur very often.”
 

If he thought that was enough of an explanation, he was wrong. I hadn’t fed from anyone’s spirit. Or, if I had, I was certainly not aware of it.
 

“So you think I’m a Pranic vampire?”
 

He shrugged a little, a curiously Gallic gesture that said: pay no attention to what I say, am I not foolish? Both the gesture and the smile annoyed me.
 

“Why would I be a Pranic and not a regular vampire?” Was there such a thing as a “regular” vampire?
 

“There is some disagreement about how a Pranic vampire occurs. I cannot answer your question.”
 

“And you think I’m one of those,” I said.
 

He nodded.
 

“Does a Pranic vampire eat Mexican food?” I asked, pointing to the crumpled bag that had held my cookies.
 

“They do not eat food in the way you do, no.”
 

“Who does?”
 

He didn’t answer, merely regarded me steadily. Was he trying to compel me to stop asking questions? If so, it wasn’t working.
 

“Then I don’t have to suck anyone’s blood, right?”
 

His mouth quirked a little. “No.”
 

“And I don’t sparkle.”
 

His perfect brow creased. “What is this sparkle you speak of?”
 

“Never mind,” I said, unwilling to explain. “Can I read minds? Levitate objects?”
 

He shook his head.
 

“Let me recap, then,” I said. “I’m a vampire, but I don’t have any superhuman powers. In the meantime, I’m eating everything that isn’t nailed down and I’m hot, really hot, all the time. Am I supposed to go through vampire menopause for the rest of my life?” I didn’t wait for him to answer. “So what’s the big deal about being a vampire?”

“The big deal, as you say, Marcie, is that you stave off age and death itself.”
 

His eyes were burning with an intensity he’d shown only once before, at my trial.
 

“What if you had two hundred years to create a vaccine against polio instead of a mere fifty? What if the atom bomb was the result of a hundred fifty years of testing? How do you think men made it to the moon? A decade’s worth of trial and error?”
 

I grabbed my arms tightly with my hands. “Are you trying to tell me every scientific achievement was made by vampires?”
 

“Why do you find that so difficult to believe?”
 

“It’s a little self-serving and grandiose, isn’t it?”

This vampire thing - I had to come up with another name - was running rings around me. Just when I thought I had it figured out - wham! - I was broadsided again.

I grabbed the bottle of wine and sat back, perching it on my knee. I really did want to get snockered. If I did, would I have a hangover? Questions, questions, nothing but questions.
 

I didn’t want the wine. I wanted a loving, supportive family. I wanted the stuffed bear I had when I was eight. Theodosa, Dosa, for short, had been my constant companion until she’d been left behind at some relative’s house. Nobody understood my anguish over her loss. When she was found three years later, tucked into my cousin’s toy box - a fate I was certain was maliciously planned - I pretended a disinterest, walking away from my beloved Dosa with my nose in the air. After all, I was too old for teddy bears.
 

Somehow, I’d regressed in the past five minutes. Dosa would find a welcome in my arms right now.
 

“So, what am I supposed to do?” I asked. “I’m an insurance adjuster. I doubt the world is pining for a hundred year old insurance adjuster.” I glanced at him. “I’ve got no scientific talent. I’m not talented in anything. What am I going to do with all this time I have?”
 

“You’ll find your way.”
 

I smiled. “In the meantime, someone is trying to kill me.”
 

He looked surprised, which only made me roll my eyes.

“Opie, Ophelia, was wearing my sweater. Someone thought she was me.”
 

“You realized this,” he said.
 

Now I did roll my eyes.

“Someone wants me dead. I mean, really dead.”
 

Finding out there were werewolves was feeling a bit anticlimactic. I mean, what could they do to me that someone hadn’t already tried to do? Well, I guess they could gnaw on me a little.
 

“The problem is,” I said, “is there are too many suspects. My family, who might want me gone, less of an embarrassment for them. A former friend or two who’s horrified I’m a vampire. After all, to them I’m dead. What’s a little murder when your victim is deceased?”
 

I looked at him. “Is there a punishment for killing a vampire?”
 

He studied the coffee table, which was an answer. Goodie, open season on me.
 

“I could even see Doug doing it, except it would have been an accident. Doug is the worst driver I’ve ever seen.”
 

A wisp of a smile curved his lips. So glad he found this amusing.
 

“You, because you’re tired of being a mentor and I am giving every sign of being a pain in the ass.”
 

He nodded, which made me want to toss the wine at him, but I’d drunk it all.
 

I stood, moving in front of the living room window. On second thought, my silhouette could probably be seen through the curtains. I stepped back, seeing imaginary snipers perched on the rooftop.
 

Granted, I wasn’t happy at the moment. However, being a vampire beat the hell out of dying, giving up the mortal coil, kicking the bucket, etc. I’d wanted to live and I was, in a way. Nobody guaranteed a human anything when they were born. Maybe I should think of being a vampire like that. I wasn’t promised anything, so I would make a life for myself.
 

First of all, I was going to get rid of the label: vampire. I didn’t like it. Calling myself Pranic was better than being a vampire. Hi, I’m Marcie and I’m Pranic. No, maybe not.
 

I turned to face him.
 

“What other surprises are in store?”
 

He smiled, a genuinely amused expression, one making him even more handsome. After Doug, I was learning. I glanced away, rather than be caught up in his appearance.
 

“Nothing,” he said.
 

“You’re not a Pranic, then?”
 

“Does it matter?”
 

“By that, I take it you’re not. Do you get your blood in bottles or from willing slaves?”
 

He came toward me. I didn’t move, determined to show him how strong and brave I could be. Me, vampiress. You, hunk.

“I have no slaves. I do know some willing women.”
 

“I’ll bet,” I said, taking a step to the side. “Are you married?”
 

“No.”
 

“Have a girlfriend?” The label was absurd for someone who would be with Il Duce.
 

“I have a female friend who is very special to me.”
 

A mistress, in other words.
 

“Why did you never marry?” he asked, his voice steeped in an Italian accent.
 

I bet he practiced that voice, varying the octave.
 

“I rebelled,” I said. “My mother married three times. I thought it was enough to live together.”
 

“And it did not work out?”
 

He raised one eyebrow as if mildly amused. I suspected, however, he was slightly offended. He was a Master, five hundred something years old and probably traditional in his thinking.
 

“It didn’t work out.”
 

Three years and a whole bunch of soul searching later, I realized I’d made a mistake. Bill wasn’t a life partner. Bill wasn’t a partner, period.
 

I didn’t tell him about the two miscarriages. Some things weren’t any of Il Duce’s business.
 

Before Bill I’d only had one serious relationship and after him, there was only Doug. That was depressing.
 

“Why do vampires marry?” I asked, thinking of Paul. “Why do they marry - humans, mortals?”
 

“The living?” he asked, smiling gently. “Why not? For companionship, love, affection. There have been many times when the living have been persuaded to marry one of the Kindred.”
 

I could imagine why. Sex with Doug had been amazing; it was probably an inducement for more than one woman to fall into bed with a vampire. But marriage? I couldn’t accept my mother’s marriage to Paul. Nor could I accept I might one day be married to one of the living.
 

Move over, will you, Marcie, your feet are like ice!
 

You’re going to have to be more careful when we kiss, Marcie. My lip keeps bleeding.
 

No, the dynamics didn’t work for me.
 

“I am sorry this has been so disconcerting for you. If I could have made it easier, I would have.”
 

He reached out and, before I could move away, touched my cheek. His fingertip was warm. I flinched before I could control it.
 

Don’t touch me.
 

His face changed, a mask sliding down over his smile, freezing it. He dropped his hand and stepped back, giving me a courtly bow.
 

I watched as he walked out of the living room, heard my door open then close.
 

He hadn’t said goodbye. I’d probably insulted him by flinching.
 

I locked the door and went upstairs, reviewing my interesting night. I’d witnessed a murder. I learned way more than I ever knew about vampires. I discovered I was an oddity among them.
 

There were werewolves and lions and bears, oh my. I was too tired to worry about that at the moment. This night was over. It had to be over. Too many things had happened for me to process it easily. There had been too many revelations for me to take it all in.

As I fell into an alcohol sotted sleep, I realized my life had gotten a lot more complicated after I died.

C
HAPTER
F
OURTEEN

Seek not to know for whom the blood drops

The next night I attended Ophelia’s cremation. My outfit was black in deference to the occasion, consisting of a black suit jacket and a pencil, calf length, skirt. I wore two inch heels, silver earrings my grandmother had given me and a pendant I’d inherited from my great-grandmother. The emblem was Celtic, the knot signifying eternity.