––––––––
I threw the little bag containing the new gloves on my couch and clung to the kitchen table. Adam had gotten way too far under my skin. Suddenly seeing him again like that was so not in the plan. The thought that he was still interested in me had my heart running amok. I felt like everything was closing in on me.
I peeled off my outdoor things and threw myself on the couch. Of course I could have told Pia about Adam, but really I just wanted distraction. I had so many burning questions about Lily, so I grabbed my cellphone.
‘I’m back.’ I sent off the message.
My phone rang immediately.
“There you are! I’ll explode if I can’t speak to you right now,” she said. “We better talk rather than text, otherwise I’ll have bloody fingers from all the typing.” She sounded exhilarated and I could feel her mood rubbing off on me.
“Did he say you’re allowed to talk to me?”
“It’s no problem, since you’ve already met a vampire.”
So my rescuer was my ticket into their secret world? I hoped much of what was true for her vampire also applied to mine. Still, I couldn’t let go of one thing: “Is Sebastien really dead?”
“Sounds crazy, right?” She sounded fascinated more than anything. “He explained it to me. There are ‘the born’ and ‘the turned’. The born are vampires from day one. But if you’re turned into one, you have to die first before your body can change into a vampire. That’s why Sebastien was able to show me his grave.” She sighed. “Such an incredible sign of faith.”
Above all else, one fact seemed to stick in my mind: He was dead. Did my guardian angel have his own empty grave somewhere out there?
“When did he die?”
“1892.”
I had been searching for information for so long, and now it sent a chill down my spine. “I can hardly believe it.”
“Yeah, it’s crazy. There’s a world of magic out there and none of us knows anything about it. I mean, we had our suspicions, but what did we really know?”
Our wild speculations ran through my head.
“Did you tell Hope and Bailey?”
“No, not yet,” she said. “Only you. After all, you’re looking for a vampire too.”
“Thanks.” I had a lump in my throat.
“There’s something else,” she began.
I sat up on the couch. “What is it?”
“I discussed your childhood experience with Sebastien. He reckons only a born vampire could have saved you with his blood. Sebastien is a turned. He couldn’t have done it. But his offspring could be born vampires. Cool eh?”
The next generation of vampires was well beyond the limits of my imagination. I still didn’t even have a picture of Sebastien in my mind.
“So he can have kids?” At least Lily wouldn’t have to go without children if she got involved with him.
I pushed the bag with the gloves away, slid deeper down on the couch and snuggled my head into a cushion.
“It doesn’t work for everyone,” she said. “There are limitations that come from dying. I don’t know any more than that. It seemed weird to be asking him about his ability to father children on the first date.”
“That’s understandable.” I traced my fingernail over the pattern on the couch cover. “But my vampire was born that way?”
“Yes.”
Then he shouldn’t be burdened by any limitations from dying. I drove away the thought, before I started imagining babies playing with bats instead of guinea pigs.
“In what other ways is he different from Sebastien? Does your vampire get silver eyes too?”
She giggled. “Hang on, I’ll ask him.”
There was whispering in the background, then the sound of hair brushing over the receiver. At first I assumed Lily was going to talk to me again, but the voice on the phone was much deeper.
“Hello, Lucy,” he said. I was only hearing him over an electronic device, he wasn’t standing there, live in my room. Still, his voice buzzed along my nerves like a bolt of lightning.
Holy schnitzel: A vampire!
I was that close to responding with “Yes, master.” He sounded so intimidating. It was nothing like I had expected – not like I remembered my encounter fourteen years ago. What kind of man had Lily caught herself?
On the other hand, I’d never heard my vampire’s voice. Who knew how he would have sounded?
“Yes?” I croaked, just managing to leave off the Master.
“The man you are looking for is very powerful. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have been able to save your life so easily.” I stared at my forearm as he spoke; I could see every single hair standing on end. “Moreover, you yourself are rare.”
“Oh.” I had no idea what he meant, but I didn’t dare ask. How the hell did Lily do it? I felt as small as a mouse.
“Vampires like him don’t give life to someone just like that, because joining his blood with yours also binds him to you.”
I frowned and gulped. Very quietly I managed to say: “How do you mean, sir?”
“You can call me Sebastien. No need to be so formal.”
Sure. Apart from the fact I was about to pee my pants. “Okay.”
He laughed. His voice was so deep and – I didn’t know how else to describe it – underworldly. As if it were echoing through catacombs. And it wasn’t anything to do with the telephone; Lily had sounded completely normal.
“What I mean to say is, he always knows how you’re doing,” he explained. “You’re a part of his pulse, because unlike me, he does have one.”
“How...?” I cleared my throat again. “How exactly does that work?”
He took a deep breath in and then released it. Damn, that sounded crazy sexy. And that wasn’t even my vampire. How would it be when it really was him? I cast a guilty look at my shopping bag with the gloves. There had been some serious sparks between me and Adam. But this here also sizzled.
“He feels you,” was Sebastien’s simple explanation.
“Okay, but I wish I could feel him too.”
Only after I’d said it did I realize how impertinent it sounded.
His laughter surged through the phone like a force of nature. “Really? Should I tell him?”
“You know him!” My shrill voice rang through the room. It wasn’t a question.
“There aren’t many of his kind here,” he replied indifferently.
I dug my fingernails into the arm of the couch. I was so shocked I felt dizzy.
“What’s his name? Where does he live?”
Sebastien clicked his tongue. “I can’t tell you.”
Then he spoke quietly: “No, I can’t tell you either, ma petite princesse.” He sounded amused.
His little princess? That definitely wasn’t me. Lily must have tried to get it out of him.
“I’ll tell him,” he returned his attention to me. I could tell by the tone of voice. “Although I think he already knows.”
“How?”
“His pulse.”
That seemed to be his answer to everything. Luckily he explained it to me in more detail: “You are in his blood. And in blood lies the soul. If you are a part of his soul, your feelings are also his feelings. That’s why we really don’t do these blood unions.”
So I was rare because vampires hardly ever gave humans their blood. I suddenly had a strange feeling of foreboding. “Does that mean I’m a vampire now too?”
Heavens, I didn’t drink blood!
Sebastien seemed to find me hilarious. “No.” He snorted dryly. “Believe me, you would have noticed. You’re just in his blood.”
“But that’s so one-sided.” I really didn’t want to complain, but I gradually had more courage to talk with Sebastien. He didn’t seem to be bothered by me talking normally with him. Mind you, it felt worse than a job interview for me. He made me nervous; it was lucky I wasn’t a nail biter.
“It’s far from one-sided. Lily told me you sometimes feel the wound. It’s your bond with him. Besides...” he sighed. “I’m not used to speaking so openly with humans. I’m only doing it because you’ve already met him. But I don’t want you or Lily to tell anyone else about us.”
“What about Hope and Bailey?” I heard her ask in the background.
“A ghost and a werewolf, huh?” he asked, more directed at her. “They’re not our concern. You and Lucy can talk with one another, that will have to do.”
I wondered whether Bailey’s wolf and Hope’s ghost also had such strong codes.
“That goes for you too, Lucy.”
“Okay.” It didn’t seem fair to suddenly shut the two of them out like that. We had always shared our experiences openly. I felt like I was going behind their backs.
“Now, back to the other thing,” he went on. “It isn’t one-sided. The blood didn’t just save you once. It is in you. It’s there, do you understand? Didn’t you ever notice your wounds heal more quickly than other people’s? Did you ever get another bruise after that?”
I gulped and wet my lips. “I never went ice skating again.” Before that, I’d often had bruises from falling on the ice, but since then... Why had I never noticed? “Oh my god.”
“And your search for him isn’t coincidental either – his blood draws you to him. It calls to you. In your thoughts you are with him, and it will only get stronger.”
I rubbed my eyes wearily. Deep down I’d known that. It was like Lennox had said: I was crazy about this one man. But I didn’t want to be remote controlled. I had thought I was acting under my own free will, following my own instincts.
“It didn’t used to be like that,” I said.
“Right, when you were still a child. But slowly the woman in you is awakening.”
“I’ve been of age for quite some time,” I said. “And I’ve been looking for him for a while now. Why doesn’t he come to me? You said he feels it.”
“Time works differently for us.”
I stared at the orange glow of the streetlamp in front of my window. He was lingering out there somewhere, in the shadows of my world. Our blood bond seemed to mean we were destined to meet again.
Fate, really. Serendipity.
He had chanced to see me drowning and when he got involved in my fate, he created a completely new one for us both.
I exhaled noisily. “Okay, so do you get silver eyes or not?”
After all, answering that question was the reason Lily had put him on to me in the first place.
“If I use my blood.”
Obviously Sebastien knew himself well, but to me it all sounded very cryptic. “I thought you couldn’t heal.”
“Blood doesn’t only heal,” he explained. “If you’re asking whether his eyes are always silver, then the answer is no. You can’t always see our fangs either.”
I tried to make a joke: “So TV doesn’t always lie, huh?” But even I could tell I was about as funny as a toothache. Bloody nerves. I wanted to tell him I wasn’t usually like this, but I let it go, since that would only have come across even more pathetic.
Besides, I half expected him to ask “TV?” He died in 1892 after all, and I didn’t know how much earlier he had been born. How did he feel about technology? He was fine with telephones, anyway.
“Lucy?” That was Lily’s voice. Looked like my audience with Sebastien had come to an end.
“Oh, man,” I summed up the conversation.
She squealed happily. “Crazy, right?”
“Yeah.” I massaged my temples and shook my head. A thought shot into my mind. “Oh, I didn’t even ask you yet - why did he come find you now of all times? You’ve been searching for him for quite a while too.”
My ability to take it all in finally ran out when I heard her answer. “Oh, didn’t I tell you? He’s looking for a bride.”
The cake, which up till now had survived untouched on my kitchen bench, was done for.
Bride! He showed her his grave and then wanted to marry her? After this phone call all I knew was, I really didn’t have the foggiest idea about the world I had been so longing for.
I rammed the knife into the cake and hacked myself off a large piece. The more I thought about the conversation, the more another emotion spread through me: I was mad. Mad that I was under the influence of my blood, which was still marked by his. Until today I had thought I wanted to be with my vampire of my own accord. But I was like a puppet hanging from his strings. And now those strings were starting to come undone, like a run in a stocking or the hole in my glove.
All the films about fate were perfectly nice, but I also really liked the idea of making my own decisions. How much of my behavior in the past few years was actually me and how much was him?
I loaded up a plate with cake and made myself comfortable in bed. The thing with Adam had given me a shock too. He had walked out on me again, but at least I was 100% sure the sparks between us were only what happened spontaneously between two people.
If I’d had a friend who was into polygamy, I could have called her now so she could tell me it was okay to be attracted to several men at the same time. But the rose-colored glasses around me had only been given out in pairs.
Feeling miserable, I shoved a piece of cake in my mouth. What really disappointed me was the fact that my vampire had known about my longing the whole time and he’d just left me hanging. I wanted a man I was important to, not one who deigned to show up once in a while.
I had stood up for him to my family and friends, and stayed true to him. But he hadn’t shown up to stand up for me too. Three letters to Santa! I’d been searching for him that long already. Nothing.
The cake tasted bland in my mouth. Bitter instead of sweet. My eyes filled with tears.
It may well be that time worked differently for him and a period of time like this didn’t seem long to him. If Sebastien was more than a hundred years old, then how old was my vampire? And could he have stayed young enough inside for me to feel comfortable with him? I was rather tense around Sebastien.
I stuffed another piece of cake in my mouth and made a decision. I was sick of chasing after him. After all, Lennox didn’t like it when Trixy did that either.
Anyway it seemed he was well informed and Sebastien would tell him about our conversation. Now the ball was in his court. Either he came, or he didn’t.
And if he didn’t, I’d go out with a normal man. If Lennox would ever speak to me again, I’d definitely consider him. After my recent sexy thoughts about him and since he did like women, it’d be worth thinking about. He was very good looking and we normally got on really well. Also, I loved snuffling around his neck because he smelled so amazing. That was nothing to be sniffed at.
And Adam too was a candidate. Sure, he had walked out on me, but at least that I could understand. He didn’t want to get involved with a woman who didn’t know what she wanted. But now I knew it exactly – I wanted to be courted. I wanted the man by my side to take action for me too.