Confessions of a Vampire's Girlfriend

The wind snatched Ben’s words away before I could hear them.

He waited until he was on a straight stretch of road, then turned his head toward me. “I asked you if you wanted to try driving before we have to go back.”

“Really? You’d let me? Sure! I’d love to!”

Ben pulled over to the side of the road, holding the motorcycle steady while I slid off the back. We’d been zooming around the countryside for about a half hour, down long, curvy roads, through a couple of towns, and past a big lake. We were out in the middle of the countryside now, in a rural area where there were no streetlights and only a few houses. Conversation had been limited to Ben asking me a couple of times if I was too cold, and yelling the town names as we approached them. Other than that we just rode through the night, me pressed against the warmth of his back, the rumble of the motorcycle beneath us, and the rush of the wind our buffers against the rest of the world.

Ben slid backward on the seat so I could sit in front of him. He showed me how to use the throttle and clutch on the handlebars, how to brake, where the gearshift was, wrapping it up with a quick lesson in motorcycle physics before allowing me to take charge.

“This is very cool,” I said as I settled back against his chest. It was really intimate being pressed up against him like that, with his legs hugging mine, but it was nice intimate, not at all like a guy grabbing your boob or something icky like that. I pursed my lips as I looked down at myself. “Don’t look.”

“What?”

“Don’t look.” I had tucked my skirt under my legs, but realized that without Ben blocking the wind, the lightweight material would soon flutter up around me, probably catching in the wheels and killing us both. Or at least me. I rose up, reached between my legs to grab the bottom of the back of my skirt, pulling it forward and tucking it up into my waistband so I was wearing my skirt Gandhi-style. I pushed the stray bits firmly under my legs and sat down. Ben pulled me back against his body (which was really nice, but I had to remind my inner Fran twice that this wasn’t a date and she wasn’t supposed to go gaga over him), wrapping his arms around my waist in a way that made me feel protected even though he was at my back. I gently let out the clutch, and we were off.

I suppose the best things that can be said about my motorcycle skills are that A) I didn’t crash us, and B) I didn’t get any bugs in my teeth. I drove along for a while kind of stop-and-start-ish, managed to kill the engine once, and almost tipped us over when I went off the road into the dirt. There was one really fun moment, though. We were on a stretch of road that ran past a winery, a long straight road. The moon was rising, so I could see that there were no cars coming toward us.

“I want to go really fast,” I yelled back to Ben. “But we’ll go off into the dirt if I do it.”

“Lean back,” he said, his voice nice and warm against my cold ear.

He let go of my waist and grabbed the handlebars, one arm on either side of me, his foot sliding under mine to the gearshift. The bike bucked beneath us as the engine roared into supersonic mode. All of a sudden we were flying down the road, going so fast I couldn’t breathe, almost couldn’t see for the wind-whipped tears that snaked from the outer edges of my eyes, the wind molding my shirt to my front like a pair of hands stroking my skin. Our shadows danced blackly along the shoulder of the road, gone in the flick of an eye. It was magical, as if there were nothing in the world but Ben and me and the motorcycle, and an endlessly long black road. I threw my hands into the air and laughed with the sheer joy of going so fast the air was stripped from my lungs.

Ben chuckled in my ear, his lips warm as they nuzzled me, sending a little shimmer of heat down my neck. He slowed down as he came to a sweeping curve at the end of the road, letting me take the controls again. “I’ve created a monster, I think.”

My skin felt all prickly where he had touched me, but it was a good prickly, a nice prickly. I dragged my mind away from that feeling. No sense in going there. “No, but I want a motorcycle now. This is just too fun.”

It was also really cold up front despite it being a warm night out, so after about fifteen minutes of my being a biker chick, I agreed to Ben’s suggestion that he drive again. We rode back to the Faire without saying anything else, but I couldn’t shake the prickly feeling his touch had given me. All of a sudden I wanted to give something back to him for such a wonderful evening.

He parked the bike alongside the far edge of the parking ground, waiting for me to dismount before he turned off the engine. I stood beside the bike, glancing around quickly. We were in the shadows cast by a nearby stand of trees. The people streaming past us didn’t even give us a second glance, focused as they were on the bright lights of the Faire.

My stomach twirled around on itself. I wanted to do this, really wanted it, but it was also kind of scary. “Ben?”

“Hmm?” He pocketed his keys and turned to me.

My stomach started turning somersaults. I stepped forward, put my hands on his shoulders, and brushed my lips against his.

He froze, his hands at his sides. I couldn’t see his eyes, but I assumed they were black as the sky above. “What was that?”

I let go of his shoulders and stepped back. “It was a kiss.”

“It was?” I knew, I just knew by the tone of his voice that one of his eyebrows was raised in question. I also knew that a guy like him—so gorgeous, not to mention at least three hundred years old—had probably kissed a thousand women, all of them better kissers than me. I was certain the French Revolution babe with the legs was. I stepped back another step, feeling positively sick to my stomach now. Stupid Fran! Stupid, horrible-kisser Fran!

“Fran?”

I held up my hands and took a step to the side. “It’s okay; you don’t have to say it. I’m sorry. I won’t do it again.”

He took my hands, placing them on his chest, his palms warm against the back of my hands as I was pulled gently up against his front. “Now you make me sad. That wasn’t a kiss, Fran.”

I couldn’t look at him. Even if I could see him, I didn’t want to look at his eyes. I looked at his earlobe instead, the one with the diamond in it. “I said I’m sorry. You don’t have to rub it in that I’m so bad—”

“You’re not bad, just inexperienced. Would you like me to kiss you?”

“No,” I said, feeling all stubborn and even more stupid than ever. Now he pitied me because I didn’t know how to kiss properly. I hate being pitied almost as much as I hate being called a freak.

“All right. How about you kiss me again? This time, don’t just brush your lips over mine; keep them there while you say, ‘Mississippi.’”

“You’re laughing at me.”

He let go of my hands on his chest, and slid them around my waist, pulling me closer until his breath feathered across my face as he spoke. “I can assure you that the last thing I want to do now is laugh. Kiss me, Fran. Please.”

It was the “please” that did it. I stopped looking at his earlobe, raising my chin a little so my mouth was a hairbreadth from his. “Mississippi,” I said, my lips going all warm and soft at the touch of his.

“Again,” he whispered.

“Mississippi,” I breathed, this time allowing my lips to touch his the whole time I said the word.

“Once more,” he said, his voice low and smooth, like black satin.

Mississippi, I thought as I kissed him, really kissed him, my arms sliding up around his shoulders, catching in his hair. I tugged on the leather thong he used to tie back his ponytail, his hair spilling like cool silk over my fingers as his lips moved beneath mine, his mouth opening a little, just enough to suck at my lower lip.

I pulled back from him, slowly, my lips clinging to his like they didn’t want to leave (smart lips), my hands trailing over his shoulders and down his chest until they dropped down at my sides, suddenly empty and cold. My brain—what there was of it—ran around like a hamster on a wheel, trying to think of something to say that wasn’t, “Holy cow! Do you know how to kiss!”

“Um,” I said, then wanted to die. Um? Come on, Fran; you can do better than that! “Did you know that your hair is longer than mine?”

He stared at me for a minute, then tipped his head back and shouted with laughter. I turned bright red, I just know I did, because my cheeks went all hot; then suddenly he hugged me, very hard, and let me go.

The hug made me feel better. My hands were on his arms while he hugged me, and I couldn’t feel any sense of his mocking me. There was amusement, and pleasure, and a really warm, tingly feeling that I didn’t want to look at too closely, but there wasn’t any sign he was making fun of me. I relaxed. “I hope you’re laughing with me, not at me, ’cause if you’re not, you’re going to scar me for life and I’ll never be able to kiss anyone again without wondering if I totally suck at it.”

He took my hand and squeezed it, pulling me toward the Faire. “You don’t suck at kissing, Fran. I was laughing because you’re such a delight.”

A delight. Hmm. I thought about that for a couple of minutes as we walked toward my mother’s tent, my hand in his, my insides all warm and glowy. Someone thought I was a delight. Made a nice change from freak.

I waved at Mom as she explained a spell to a customer. She looked at her watch, pursing her lips at me. I mouthed, Sorry! to her (we were ten minutes late) and pretended I didn’t notice her scandalized look when she saw me holding Ben’s hand.

“I have to talk to Imogen when she’s not busy,” I told Ben as we wandered down the center aisle. We stopped to check on Tesla, who was having a snooze, one back leg cocked up on the edge of his other hoof. I patted him, and turned back to Ben. “Thank you for the ride and . . . uh . . . everything.”

He smiled at me; then his eyes shifted to Tesla, who woke up enough to realize that potential treat givers were present, and thus they should be snuffled to see if either had an apple or carrot on their person. We didn’t, but I scratched his ears.

“Have you noticed this?” Ben took my hand, using my forefinger to trace an L shape on Tesla’s cheek.

“Huh,” I said, peering closely at Tesla’s coat, my fingers feeling again for the slight thickening. It was an L. “What is it?”

“It’s a brand.”

I wrinkled my nose. “Ew. Why would someone brand him on his face?”

Ben just looked at me for a few seconds, then finally said, “Tesla is a special horse.”

“That’s what Panna said.”

“Panna?”

“The girl whose grandfather owned Tesla. She said that he always told her that Tesla was a special horse.”

“He is special. Have you ever heard of a breed called Lipizzan?”

I shook my head. I liked horses, but didn’t know too much about them. “Is that why someone put an L on his cheek? Because he’s a Lipizzan?”

“Something like that.”

“What about the odd-shaped scar on his neck?”

“It’s another brand. What did you want to see Imogen about?”

“You’re pretty good at changing subjects, aren’t you?” I patted Tesla’s black nose and started back toward the main fairway. “Are you rich?”

He raised both of his eyebrows. “You’re not so bad at subject changing, either. Do you need a loan?”

“No. I just want to know if you’ve got lots of money. I mean, you mentioned having servants a long time ago. I didn’t know if that meant you’d run out, or if you’re loaded.”

“I think the word is comfortable.”

“Oh.” I knew what that meant. It was a polite word for rich. “Is Imogen comfortable, too?”

“I would imagine so. Why do you want to know?”

“She shops a lot.”

He stopped, putting a hand on my wrist to stop me. “Why the questions, Fran?”

“I just wanted to know if she had oodles of money lying around to shop with, or if she . . .”

“If she what?”

I hesitated. I’d just kissed the guy; I couldn’t very well blurt out that I thought his sister might be dipping into Absinthe and Peter’s safe to fund her shopping trips. “If she needed some.”

“I’m sure if you ask her, she’ll tell you.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. I suppose I had better run along. I’m supposed to be learning how to read palms, not that I want to, but Mom says I have to in order to pay for Tesla.”

He looked curious. “Do you always do everything your mother says?”

I laughed. “Not even close. But I have to about this, or else I have to find Tesla a new home.” I hesitated to tell him more, to explain how confusing it all was—part of me wanting to go home, back to the normal life I had carefully built; but the other part of me, a Fran I didn’t know existed, suddenly popped up and said she wanted to keep Tesla, and to stay where Ben was liable to be.

I told that Fran she had things mixed up, and that nothing was worth being a weirdo touchy-feely girl, but she pointed out that I was a weirdo touchy-feely girl no matter where I went, so why shouldn’t I have a little fun?

I hate it when I argue with myself. I never win.

“I’ll see you around, huh? You’re going to be here for a little while longer?”

He did the brushing-my-hair-behind-my-ear thing again. “Yes, Imogen has asked me to extend my visit. I’ll be here for a bit more.”

“Good.” A big weight I didn’t know was squashing me lifted. I gave him a little smile, deciding that now was as good a time as any to ask him what I wanted to know. “Um . . . can you read minds?”

He didn’t even blink at the question; he just answered it. “Not unless I have a bond with the person whose mind I wish to merge with.”

“Bond? Oh, you mean . . .” I made slurping noises.

A little teeny-tiny smile curled the edges of his mouth. “Not necessarily. A bond of blood sometimes will be strong enough that I can communicate with the person, but the most powerful connections are between people who have some sort of emotional bond. With trust comes strength.”

“Oh, so that’s why you can talk to me in my head?”

“You are my Beloved. We are genetically engineered to be able to communicate without words.”

“Except when I don’t want you to.” I thought for a moment. “If I do the mind-protection thing, could you get through it? I mean, could you force your way into my mind because of this connection we have?”

He didn’t say anything. With that silence came a sudden understanding.

“You can’t lie to me, can you? That’s one of the Dark One rules, isn’t it?”

His eyes weren’t black, as I expected. The gold bits glittered brightly. “Yes, it’s one of the rules.”

“So you could force your way into my mind, but you never would because you know it would really cheese me off?”

He looked a bit annoyed. “It goes deeper than that, but that is the basic idea, yes.”

“Wow. This is pretty powerful stuff. You’d let me kill you—you can’t lie to me . . . Is there anything else? I mean, do I have, like, absolute power over you?”

He gave me a really weak smile, kind of like he didn’t want to, but couldn’t help himself. “There’s a lot more, and no, I’m not going to tell it to you. Not until the time comes that you are ready to hear it.”

I couldn’t help myself. I knew I shouldn’t be encouraging this, but I just couldn’t help myself. “When will that be?”

“I have no idea.” His face was unmoving, the wind ruffling his long hair around his shoulders.

“Oh.” I wanted to tell him that I didn’t think things were ever going to work out between us, but I didn’t. Some part of me, some tiny little part, wanted me to work things out. It kept me silent.

“What are you up to?” he asked. “Whose mind do you want to read? And what does it have to do with Imogen and money?”

I was a little surprised he didn’t know what Mom and Absinthe had cornered me into doing. Soren knew, and although I doubted anyone else did, I was pretty sure either Mom or Absinthe would tell Imogen. For some reason—probably one of those Moravian things—Imogen always seemed to know the latest gossip. But apparently she hadn’t told her brother about the thefts.

That was interesting.

It was also icky. I hated feeling suspicious of Imogen. She and Soren were my only friends here.

And Ben. But he wasn’t really a friend; he was a Dark One who needed me to bring the light back into his life. . . .

“It’s just a little project I’m doing,” I finally answered, not wanting to tell him the truth of my suspicions.

“What sort of a project?”

“Nothing you need to worry about. I can handle it, no problem.”

I started to walk past him toward Imogen’s tent, but he stopped me again. “Fran . . .” His forehead was all wrinkled up in a frown. “If you get into trouble, any trouble, you know I will help you.”

“Like with Absinthe? Yeah. I know. And thank you.”

“No, not just like the episode with Absinthe. Any trouble—you know that I will help you no matter what the problem. You just have to ask me.”

“What makes you think I can’t deal with my own problems?” That warm, glowy feeling inside me fizzled out into annoyance. “You think that just because I’m a girl I need to be bailed out of every situation, right? Well, think again, Benedikt Czerny. This is the twenty-first century. Women don’t need guys to do everything for them anymore.”

His frown tried to match mine, but I’m the queen of frowns. “I didn’t say you couldn’t. I simply meant that there are some things that are better left to me. It doesn’t lessen your strength to admit that there are some things you can’t do.”

“Yeah?” I poked him in the chest, just because I knew it would annoy him. How dared he think I couldn’t handle my own problems? Patronizing me, that was what he was doing, and I hate being patronized almost as much as I hate to be pitied or thought of as a freak. Patronizing is number three on my list of things I really, really dislike. “You’ve got that ‘I’m so macho, couldn’t you just die’ look on your face, so you’re not fooling me one single bit.”

“All I said was that—”

“I know what you said; I’m not stupid! You said if I was too wimpy to deal with my own life, you’d come along like some big, brave vamp knight and rescue my pathetic butt. Ha! I have news for you—my butt doesn’t need rescuing. I can do anything you can do. Well . . . with the exception of peeing standing up. And drinking blood. I don’t think I could do that; it’s just too icky. And the healing thing. And warding stuff, but I could do that if someone taught me how, so that really shouldn’t count.”

“Fran—”

“Good night, Ben.”

Without staying to hear any more of his macho bull, I headed off down the aisle that was growing more and more packed with people every minute. The magic acts were popular, but it was the bands that really brought the crowds out, and as Absinthe had brought with her a German band that had local fans, the crowds were even thicker than normal. I wound my way through them, skimmed around the line of people waiting for Imogen, and presented myself to her, saying, “Peter says you’re supposed to show me how to read palms.”

She looked a bit surprised at that, glancing at my hands. I turned my back on the people and tugged my gloves out from where I had tucked them into my pocket, pulling them on and taking the chair that Imogen indicated. She was reading a fat man’s rune stones, but I figured it wouldn’t hurt me to sit and watch how she did her readings.

“How did your ride go?” she asked in between customers.

“Fine. Has your brother always been so pigheaded?”

“Pigheaded?” Her eyebrows rose. “Benedikt?”

Two guys and a girl took the seats across the table from us, arguing about who wanted to go first.

“It doesn’t matter.” I waved aside my comment.

“Oh, but I think it does,” she said, giving me one of her mischievous grins before turning to the threesome and asking who wanted what.

I sat with her for almost two hours, taking a little break to get some water and to give my mother a chance to run and change for her invocation hour. Imogen showed me all the pertinent points on the palms of those people who came to have her read them, telling me how to interpret the various lumps, lines, bulges, and assorted other hand stuff. It was okay, but to tell the truth, I didn’t quite buy it. I guess that was because I knew I could tell a whole lot more about the person just by touching my bare fingers to their palm than by interpreting a big mound of Mars to mean they were particularly argumentative.

I didn’t have a chance to talk to her alone until just as the new band was about to start. All of the tents except the piercing one closed down then. Most of the Faire people went in and watched the band, joining in the dancing and stuff. Peter thought it was good for business to have everyone mingling, and said it made for repeat customers. Imogen always went to see the bands, and almost always spent the two hours the band was on dancing with one guy or another, dodging Elvis as he tried to convince her to dance only with him. I usually hung around outside, sometimes talking to Soren, sometimes to Tallulah the medium (she hated music of any sort), sometimes just being by myself.

I waited until Imogen finished with her last customer. She glanced toward the big tent as the loudspeaker crackled into life when Peter announced the band.

“Here, take this,” Imogen said, shoving her money box at me. It was crammed full of forints and euros.

“What do you want me to do with it?” I asked, wondering if she had skimmed some off the top for her shopping trips, then immediately felt guilty for even thinking that about someone who was my friend.

“Give it to Peter for me, please. I so want to hear this Picking Scabs.”

That was the name of the band, Picking Scabs. I know. It’s beyond me, too. I suppose it could be worse. It could be Pickled Scabs.

I gnawed my lip a bit. “Aren’t you supposed to count it up and stuff, so you get your fair share?”

“You can do it for me, can’t you? Please, Fran?” She stuffed her rune stones in a big leather satchel and gave me a brilliant grin.

“Wait, Imogen. I wanted to ask you . . . uh . . .”

“Yes?” She stood tapping her foot impatiently, her eyes watching all the people streaming into the big tent as the screech of feedback echoed throughout the Faire. The band was evidently about to start.

“Did you go shopping today? I looked for you, but didn’t see you.”

“Yes, I went into Sopron.” That was a big city about ten kilometers down the road. “Was that all you wanted?”

“No. Um. What did you buy?”

She looked at me like my head had turned into a monkey. “Clothes.”

“A lot? I mean, did you find a lot of good bargains?”

She laughed her tinkly little laugh that reminded me of a stream burbling. “Fran, I never buy bargains. Those are for the peasants.”

She traced a quick ward above my head, and dashed off toward the big tent. I sighed. So much for my detective skills. I’d been questioning people all day and was no further than when I started. Except now I knew that possibly everyone connected to the Faire could have had a shot at the safe . . . but I had felt only seven people on the safe’s handle. It didn’t make sense. It just didn’t make sense.

I spent ten minutes counting Imogen’s take, writing up the info on her slip and tucking it neatly into the box. Then I went to hunt down Peter.

“Hey, Peter. Imogen gave me this to give to you. I counted the money and wrote it on the slip.”

“What?”

Peter was at the back of the tent with Teodor the security guy/bouncer who kept an eye on everyone. Peter’s little balding head was bopping along with the music, which was loud, loud, and then more loud. The bass positively throbbed in my teeth, it was so loud. The lead singer screamed in German into the microphone. I always crank my headphones up when I’m listening to music—loud is definitely better than soft—but this was ridiculous! The sound screeching from the big amps was so pervasive it filled everything, every space, both inside the tent and inside the people. I felt it crawling around the edges of my brain and knew then that Absinthe had managed to find a band that knew some sort of magic. Probably they cast a spell to make the audience adore them—Imogen said that was pretty standard stuff.

I repeated my words, bellowing them about four inches from his ear. It was barely enough to be heard. He nodded and took the cash box, tucking it under his arm to applaud as the music stopped.

I didn’t want to touch him. I had touched more people in the last day than I had in a month, and I wanted my brain back to myself. I spent a few seconds being mad that my mother had manipulated me into the position of having to do the thing I hated most, but then my inner Fran pointed out that I had offered to do it in exchange for something I wanted.

I hate it when my brain does that sort of thing.

The next song started. I decided there was no way I could possibly come right out and ask Peter if he was stealing from himself for some purpose I couldn’t begin to imagine, gritted my teeth, and peeled off the glove from my left hand, edging my way closer to him. He was bouncing and bopping around in that “I’m cool and I can dance” way that adults think make them look like they know how to dance (which they don’t). I let my hand brush against him a couple of times, turning so it was my palm that touched his arm. He never even noticed when I backed away.

I noticed, though. I backed into Ben.

“Hi,” I yelled, trying to be nonchalant, like I didn’t care whether he was there or not, but failing when he grinned at me. I couldn’t resist his grins. They made me go all warm and puddly inside.

“Dance?” he yelled back, and tipped his head toward the mass of people dancing like crazy in the main area of the tent.

“Sure.”

He grabbed my hand, looked down, and, without even asking me, peeled off my gloves and stuffed them in his back pocket. He held out his hand for the other gloves. I gave them to him. He pushed us through the crowd until we were in the middle of the pack. There must have been three hundred people jammed into that tent, all dancing like mad. Ben kept a hand on me as we joined in, but it was hard going, since every two seconds someone’s elbow bumped me, or leg jostled me, or arm hit my back, or hair swung out.

“This is like dancing in a can of sardines,” I yelled in Ben’s ear.

“Do you want to leave?” he yelled in mine.

“Not now. Maybe in a bit.”

I swear, someone in the band was using magic, because everything started to get better. Ben smiled, and somehow managed to keep us moving so hardly anyone smacked into us. I kept my hands on his arms, and gave myself up to the moment. The music didn’t seem nearly so harsh and annoying, and started to make sense. Along the fringes of the dance area I could see Mom dancing with a laughing Peter. Imogen had evidently given Elvis the go-ahead, because they were dancing near us, Imogen looking a little bored, Elvis all but drooling on her. Even Soren was dancing, with a girl, yet! I smiled at him and swung around when Ben turned us, just barely avoiding Kurt’s long hair as he did a little twirl with a tall blond woman.

“Everyone’s here,” I yelled happily to Ben, feeling for once like I was truly a part of a group, nothing special, just me, just one little cog in a great big wheel.

“They have to be; the lead singer’s using a glamour,” he answered. “It makes people want to dance. Can’t you feel it?”

“Yeah, but I don’t mind. Hey, look, there’s Absinthe.” He looked where I pointed. I’ve never seen Absinthe even near the tent when the bands played, but there she was, her spiky pink hair bobbing up and down as she danced with Karl.

“I’m so happy,” I said, and threw my hands up as Ben laughed with me, grabbing my waist to spin me around. “Everything’s so wonderful!”

I realized my mistake the second my fingers came in contact with the bodies surrounding me. Images, thoughts, hopes, desires, sadness, sickness, sorrow . . . As Ben spun me around, a hundred thoughts filled my mind. I pulled my arms back in, but not before I touched someone.

Someone bad.

Someone evil.

Someone who was planning on killing the laughing, handsome man who held me in his arms.