THIRTY-FIVE

Once we finished with Jose Luis’s first feeding, who enjoyed a whole bag of blood by himself, we changed out of our suits and gathered on the beach. Christian and Aloysius had a fire roaring and Aaron had gotten the beach chairs from the boat and set them up around the fire. The sun was almost completely down and some orange hues still remained over the water. We settled in our seats, staying silent for a few moments while we looked around in awe at the beauty of the island. The view was gorgeous and, looking around at my loved ones, I couldn’t help but feel like maybe there was hope for happiness. For the longest time, I didn’t believe in happily ever after then. When I finally thought I did, it was ripped from my hands. Now, with all of us here together again, and with our new additions, I was starting to feel like maybe it was possible after all.

“Won’t we need jackets or something for when it gets really dark?” Jose Luis broke the silence. Fiore laughed from across the circle.

“What’s so funny?” I asked, already feeling defensive toward my new son.

“Nothing at all,” she answered leaning to the side so she could see me around the fire. “It’s just been a long time since I’ve been around a new vampire, besides Christian, of course, especially one so young. Christian knew more or less what to expect. Jose Luis knows only what he’s seen.”

“You’re right, of course. I apologize,” I said to her and then turned to Jose Luis. “You won’t notice the temperature difference. You won’t ever feel cold and you won’t ever sweat when it’s hot.”

He thought about it for a moment. “Then why do you wear jackets when you go outside in Lima? I am thinking you probably wear shorts in the summer too, right?”

“We do. We dress according to what we know the season to be. If we wear shorts in the winter, when everyone else is wearing jackets and scarves, we stick out,” I explained.

“Stick out?” he asked, confusion at the idiom obvious on his face.

“She means that we try to dress like everyone else. We try our best not to draw attention to ourselves if we can avoid it,” Christian explained. “The last thing we want is for people to start noticing our differences. We want everyone to think we are human, just like them.”

“Whatever powers or gifts we have, we keep them from the human world. It is best if none of them think we actually exist,” Aloysius added.

“How do you hide that? Some people already know vampires are real,” Jose Luis added, looking around the group.

“Just a few do, but most people are not really sure. They have no actual evidence. They believe what they read or what they see in movies. They believe all the myths associated with us, not the reality,” Aaron explained.

“Do you mean people think we cannot be around garlic or crosses? Like we cannot go into a church?” Jose Luis asked.

“Yes, among other things,” Aloysius sat back in his seat, stretching his long legs out on the sand. “Some believe we are night creatures and they are safe from us during the day. Some even believe we cannot enter a building without first being invited.”

“That is just funny,” Jose Luis laughed. “If we had to wait to be invited, we could never even go into a store.”

The whole group laughed at his comment. I looked around the circle and noticed how relaxed everyone had gotten. Kalia sat on the sand in front of Aaron, leaning back against his chair between his legs, his arms securely around her, his chin resting on the top of her head. Fiore sat close to Aloysius, his hand wrapped around hers on his lap. Mateo was the only one who sat a little apart from the group. I hoped in time he would forgive himself for what he had done to Mariana and found the love he so deserved. Regardless, he was now part of our family and I knew it would only be a matter of time until he truly became one of us.

Jose Luis interrupted my thoughts as his curiosity, and the group’s willingness to share with him, grew. “How did you all meet?” he asked.

“I met Lily at school,” Christian volunteered. “She was a student in my archaeology class. I was human then.”

Jose Luis’s eyes widened with surprise. “You were her teacher? Is that allowed?”

No one could stop the laughter that escaped their mouths. I huffed and they laughed even harder.

“She was an adult,” Christian defended himself. “I thought she was actually older than nineteen because of how mature she is. Of course, in real life, she is ninety so she was totally legal, if you like old women.” I smacked his arm playfully.

Jose Luis thought about it for a moment and nodded, turning to Fiore next. “And how did you meet Lily? You are Italian, right?”

“Yes, I am, but I was living in Ireland at the time,” Fiore started, turning to face Jose Luis. “See, Ian, Lily’s maker, brought her to Ireland. I met her there.” I noticed Aloysius sat up straight.

“When were you in Ireland?” Jose Luis turned to me.

“Not too long before we came here. Ian left me a long time ago and then he decided he wanted me back after I met Christian. He kidnapped me and took me there, telling me he would leave Christian alone if I went with him. Of course, he lied because he had Christian too, only I didn’t know it at the time.”

“To make a long story short,” Fiore interrupted noticing my distress at retelling the story. “Lily found Christian and escaped with him, took him back to America. They were hiding in a cabin in the mountains of Oregon when I found them. Lily and I became friends in Ireland and I wanted to help her.” She shook her head and her eyes glowed with the memory. “Anyway, I got to the cabin and Lily dove across the room and jumped on me. She fought me thinking I was there to take her back to Ian. You had to have been there. It was pretty funny. She looked like a crazy woman with her hair flying all over the place.”

“You really did that?” he asked me.

“Yes, I did.” I turned to Fiore. “She should not have snuck up on me like that. It’s her fault I attacked her.”

“Yeah,” Fiore said with a sigh. “But it ended well anyway.”

“Can I ask another question?” Jose Luis asked, eager to learn all he could about his new family. We all nodded.

“Who here has made other vampires, besides you, Lily?” He turned to Aaron. “Did you make your wife?”

“No, she was already a vampire when I met her. But she made Maia, our daughter,” Aaron explained.

Jose Luis, satisfied with that answer, turned to Fiore. “What about you? Did you ever make one?” Aloysius stiffened in his seat, his back straight as a board.

“A long time ago,” Fiore answered. This was a story I’d never heard. “It was maybe a couple years after I was made. My maker also left me and I hated being alone. I met a man, a very wealthy man, and fell in love. He was injured while hunting and was not going to make it so I turned him. I never asked him if it was what he wanted.”

“So what happened? Where is he?” I asked, now as curious as Jose Luis.

“He stayed with me for a while, about ten years or so, but he was miserable. He had lost his wife and daughter about a year before I met him. It turned out he didn’t want to live forever. He wanted to be with them so he killed himself.” She bowed her head to hide the tears starting in her eyes.

“He killed himself? How?” Jose Luis asked. “Is that even possible?”

Fiore wiped her eyes with a tissue she pulled from her pocket and smiled at Aloysius, apologizing for her reaction. Aloysius assured her by squeezing her hand. “He went on a killing spree in the small town where we lived. When he was discovered, he shouted that he was a vampire, right in the middle of the town square, and that he was not done killing. He vowed to kill everyone in town before moving on to the next. The authorities took him and tied him to a pole. His choice was obvious to me when he didn’t fight them. As they lit the fire at his feet, he looked at me and mouthed that he was sorry. As he burned, I could see his lips moving as if he were praying. He got what he wanted.”

“That is really sad,” Jose Luis whispered. “But you have him now and he loves you.” He motioned at Aloysius with his head.

“That is true,” Aloysius answered. Fiore looked at him with shock in her eyes. He had never said it before. “The boy is right. I do love you.”

Fiore jumped out of her seat, her smile widening as she forgot all about the tale she recounted of her Italian love. She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him, the rest of us trying to look away but unable to ignore the tender moment. “It’s about time,” she said and kissed him again. “I love you too,” she said before going back to her seat, wiping sand off her knees.

She looked at the rest of us as we sat with wide smiles on our faces. “Carry on,” she said.

“Uhh, so, yeah…” Christian said. The rest of us laughed.

“I made Aaron, my great-grandson,” Aloysius volunteered. “He was deathly ill. We were very close and I did not want to live without him.”

“That is so cool!” Jose Luis said. “Is he the only one you made?”

Aloysius dropped Fiore’s hand and folded his hands on his lap. He grasped them tightly as he looked around the circle, from one face to the next before settling his eyes on mine. I stiffened in my seat and a chill ran down my back. Could this be it? Could this be what I had been warned about? Christian reached for my hand but I pulled it away, unable to even look at him. The sound of the waves against the shore grew louder, almost deafening as everyone grew totally quiet. I sucked in a breath and held it.

“No, my dear boy, Aaron was not my only one,” Aloysius said, still holding my eyes with his as he rose from his seat and went to stand behind it. He took a deep breath before he said, “I made one other.”