Always the Vampire

As he slipped into sleep, I hugged him tightly and whispered.

“You’ll be well again, my love.”





I eased myself from Saber’s arms a little after three. After donning my nightclothes, I semi folded the comforter we’d kicked off on the foot-of-the-bed bench, gathered a wide-toothed comb, my saltwater-damp clothes, and the amulet from the bathroom, then padded to the front door to check the alarms. I could’ve sworn they were off, but on the panel, the green lights blinked their armed mode. When had Saber reset them?

“He didn’t. I did.”

I spun toward the voice, clasping my armload against my chest, and screeching a soft but solid C above high C. Snowball echoed me as Cosmil emerged from the shadowed kitchen.

“Be calm. I mean no harm.”

I wasn’t sure if he was speaking to Snowball or me, but my stuttering heartbeat slowed as I took in Cosmil’s hippie-grunge look of flip-flops, faded jeans, and a Grateful Dead T-shirt. His hair hung limp to his shoulders.

“What in the name of marsh gas are you doing here?” I whispered, shooing him back into the kitchen so Saber wouldn’t be disturbed.

“I came to talk and to retrieve the amulet for safekeeping, but do not worry. I only just arrived.”

I blushed in the dark. “Well, thanks for that, but how did you get in? I’m positive the door was locked.”

“I did not use the door,” he replied, calmly pulling out two chairs at my retro kitchen table. “I connected with your energy signature and transported myself on thought waves.”

“Through the Veil?”

“My short-distance version of it. Please, come sit. I know you have a few bones to pick with me.”

“Hah. I have a whole skeleton of them.”

“Then let us begin.”

I peered at his sincere expression. Oh, hell, fine. I looked a mess with my unruly hair down, still damp, and sticking out all over, but my pink nightshirt fell to me knees. I was perfectly decent, so there was no point in straining my vampire vision by remaining in the dark. I pushed the microwave’s surface light that shone over the stove, then pried the amulet out of my cutoffs as I carried my clothes to the laundry room. Back in the kitchen, I plopped into the chrome and turquoise chair and slapped my comb on the table.

“Here,” I said, passing the amulet to him.

He turned it in his hands. “You used it on the trip.”

It wasn’t a question, but I answered anyway. “Yes, to send a shot of protection when we were in a club.”

“This is good, Francesca.” He pulled a pouch from under his T-shirt and placed the amulet inside. Then he folded his hands on the table. “Will you give me an update on Triton?”

I did, and Cosmil concurred that Starrack might well have hired the thugs.

“What I don’t get,” I added, “is how Starrack knew about the amulets.”

Cosmil sighed. “Regrettably, I mentioned the Mu amulet in my report to the Council. Starrack must have contact with one of the members. Perhaps a nymph,” he mused, “though I do not know how he learned of the second disk.”

“Why does he want them? Just because they have powers?”

“Because they can destroy darkness.”

“Good thing Triton doesn’t have them in his ferns anymore.”

Cosmil gave me an almost smile then shifted in his chair. “Francesca, Triton has told you something of his heritage, has he not? That because a spell I cast went awry, he was born.”

I nodded and picked up the comb to start working the tangles from my hair. It might be bone-picking time, but I needed something to do with my hands besides make fists.

“I can undo most errant magick, but not when conception results. To mitigate my mistake, I have watched over Triton since his birth. Pandora, too, though she was conceived in an entirely separate incident.”

I shook the comb at him. “And in your watching, you’ve also interfered from time to time.”

He inclined his head, conceding the point. “But only occasionally, when the need was great. A small spell influenced Triton to move home in a more timely manner.”

“Another small spell kept my butt buried for more than two hundred years, didn’t it?” I jerked the comb through a massive tangle.

“True, though you must see the entire picture.” Cosmil clasped his hands on the table. “When you were lost to the vampires, I feared for Triton’s sanity. You were his beloved friend, and he was wild with grief that he had failed you. He had heard tales of the atrocities the monsters committed before and after they Turned victims. If they Turned them at all.”

I swallowed hard. Normand had declared me his heir, princess of his little fanged kingdom, and he’d sheltered me from many of the nest’s activities. Still, I’d heard the screams. Smelled the blood. Seen the helpless, empty expression of human captives like Isabella. Each newly Turned soldier or villager had radiated malevolence, blamed me for their predicament.

They would have rather been dead. And more than once, so would I.