La Vida Vampire

I sighed and considered barricading myself in the bathroom, but I’d have to come out sooner or later—to face myself if not Saber. Maybe it was time to talk. Maybe the dark time wouldn’t seem so bleak if I did. And maybe a cup of peach tea would help.

“We all went to school together,” I said as I got up to put water in the electric teakettle, Saber turning to watch. “In fact, we went to the oldest schoolhouse down on St. George Street. Triton was the adopted son of a Greek fisherman, and Marco was the son of a soldier who came in the second Spanish period. Triton and I had known each other since we were three or so, and we were so close we read each other’s minds.”

“You loved him?” Saber asked.

“Yes, and Marco was jealous. He courted me—he and a few others who weren’t terrified of The Gift. I couldn’t stand any of them. I would’ve married Triton in a heartbeat, but there were, um, obstacles.”

“Family objections? Religious differences?”

“No, our families expected us to marry.”

I set the kettle on its warmer and leaned a hip against the counter, editing the story I’d give Saber as I went along. I wasn’t about to tell him Triton had shape-shifted into a dolphin every new moon. Saber would think I was making it up or completely nutso. Besides, the truth about Triton was none of his business.

“So,” Saber broke into my thoughts with his rumbling voice, “you loved Triton, and the families didn’t object. Why didn’t you marry him?”

“He thought of me as a sister, not a wife,” I answered lightly. “Anyway, my parents didn’t force me to marry, so I turned my suitors down flat. Marco was the last of them, and I was almost twenty then. He swore he’d make me pay, and I blew him off. About a month later, the king sent for me again, and there was Marco. He was one of them.”

“Marco set the trap to capture you?”

“Yes, but not until a month after my twentieth birthday.”

“About the time Normand would consider you mature, but not over the hill.” Saber was quiet a minute, then asked, “Did Normand give you to Marco?”

“No, and it’s one of the few things I can thank him for. The king himself turned me, then kept me darn near cloistered. After a while I realized that I woke up hours before the rest of them. I figured out how to get out of Normand’s house and back in before anyone else was awake, but it took me almost a year to work up the nerve to leave the grounds.”

“Bet you scared the shit out of people.”

I kept looking at Saber but saw my terrified mother and sisters-in-law, the horror in their faces and their screams to spare them and the children. After that, I stuck to contacting Triton to pass him information about the vampires. A few months later, I begged him to get my family out of town.

“The vampires,” Saber continued, “they didn’t figure out you were a day-walker?”

“I was careful and, if I do say so myself, pretty crafty. By the second year, Marco suspected. He was busy working himself up to be Normand’s main enforcer. Which was fitting, since Marco was good at pushing the other people around.”

“Vampires.”

“Huh?”

“They weren’t people anymore.”

“Whatever,” I said as the kettle shut off with a snap.

I plopped tea bags in mugs—peach for me, Earl Grey for Saber since he’d had it Thursday. I poured the water, fuming that Saber didn’t think of me as people. I sure wasn’t chopped liver.

I set napkins and the mugs on the table and settled in my chair. “The point I was making is that Marco finally convinced the king that he should be my mate. His plan was for me to lure soldiers, turn them, and increase the king’s power base.”

“Bet that went over well.”

I remembered the scene. “Oh, yeah. It was the first time I wanted to use my vampire speed and strength and snap Marco’s nasty neck. Normand refused to give me to Marco for months, I think to play with Marco’s head. A power trip thing. Then Marco told him about my daylight escapes.”

“He knew for sure?”

I nodded.

“How’d he find out?”

“Talking to the townspeople. Marco had decided to knock off Normand and take over. He’d been riling up the men in town and the soldiers at the fort. Someone saw me and told him.”

“Did your Gift warn you about this plot?”

“Not until the night the king decided to punish me for my excursions. We were coming off a new moon, but I had a vision. The villagers were coming to slaughter and burn us out. All of us. Marco had betrayed Normand, but the townspeople double crossed Marco. I didn’t tell the king any of it.”

“Why not?” he asked softly.

I took a sip of cooling tea. “Because I hated him for making me a vampire.”

“So you, what?”

“I let him lock me in the casket, let his slaves wrap it in silver chain, and then I waited for the mob.”

“You were raised Catholic, right? You couldn’t kill yourself, but the mob could do it.”

“Except they didn’t find me.”

I heard the screams in my head, the cries for mercy, even the cries for death as bodies burned. The fire roared above the ground, and I’d felt the earth scorch.