ONE

Cement is not a great surface on which to relax. Or sleep. Or whatever the hell it was I doing at the moment. I was on my side, staring stupidly at a large black ant, my right shoulder and hip aching in a way that only something cold and unyielding could make them ache. This told me nothing about how I’d gotten there, or what, exactly, my reason could possibly be for lying there like that. On cement.

I blinked and swallowed, noticing now that my throat hurt, too. Not because it was in contact with the cement, but because… well, I had no idea why. Slowly, I levered myself up to a sitting position, still staring idiotically at that damned ant. Why was I doing that?

Ah. I knew why a second later. I was clearly trying to avoid looking at the splashes of blood on the right front of my shirt and a small pool of the stuff under the spot where I’d been lying. Yuck. I must have been hurt, but how? By what?

I put a hand to the side of my neck and it came away red and slick. More blood. More yuck.

The strangest part of all this was how my body was beginning to react, to change. I suddenly noticed that everything I laid eyes on was in ridiculously sharp focus. Ridiculous, I say, because I also realized I was no longer wearing my glasses. Yeah. Those devices that enabled my astygmatized, nearly legally-blind eyes to see almost, but not quite, at the twenty-twenty level. How was this possible?

Then my ears checked in – I could actually hear that friggin’ ant scraping its front legs over its feelers as it groomed itself. What the heck? Experimenting now, I took a deep breath through my nose…and almost gagged. The stench of a garbage can’s contents assaulted my olfactory nerves in an almost violent manner, which would hardly have been unusual had said garbage can not been located all the way at the end of this place I was in – ah! An alley. Yes, I was in a dark, smelly alley populated by odors, sooty walls, and a black ant.

I gave my head a quick shake, hoping to clear it. Instead, the sound of my hair swishing almost deafened me. This was not pleasant. But maybe I was actually dreaming. Possible? Why not? Nothing made awake-type sense. Then again, if this was real…panic began to set in. Heart-pounding, nerve-wracking …wait. Something was missing. Normally, when I was in any kind of adrenaline-inducing anxiety mode, the sound of my heart pounding in my ears was unmistakable. So why didn’t I hear it now?

Carefully, I put two fingers against my carotid artery like I normally did after exercise or jogging to make sure my pulse was within normal parameters. Aaaaannnndddd…….

Nothing.

No pulse.

Now I panicked in earnest. What was happening to me? Why didn’t I have a heartbeat? Was I a ghost? How did I end up lying on my side in an alley in the first place, and why had I been bleeding? What time was it? When had all this started? And why did the rat that skittered across my path right then look so appetizing? Not the meat of it, but the blood.

Blood.

Some kind of punctures on the side of my neck.

Heightened senses.

No heartbeat.

And suddenly, no more pain, either.

No!

Eyes wide in horror, I glanced quickly around, knowing without knowing how that I wasn’t alone in this place. But where – ah. On the fire escape over there.

The shadow lengthened, becoming a human shape, and impossibly jumped down from the second story where the platform ended to land easily on the same cement I’d been obsessing about a few minutes earlier.

“Welcome.” The voice was deep, seductive, and came from a creature whose looks matched the sound. His age was impossible to guess if one tried to gauge it by his features. These were smooth, youthful, beautiful. But his eyes! Ah, no, they glittered in a very inhuman way and because of a trick of the light, or perhaps the way the skin around them folded, looked older than time itself.

“What do you mean?” I knew what he meant but was too suddenly angry for polite conversation.

“I’ve made you one of us. You belong to our, ah, family. So welcome.”

“Uh-huh. Because of course, you sent me an invitation first which I naturally accepted, right?” Arrogant bastard, I thought. The son of a bitch had killed me, turned me into a monster, and now expected me to be beside myself with gratitude?

He laughed. Under other circumstances, I would have enjoyed the sound of it. “Come. Let me teach you how to feed.”

“How to feed? What am I? A damn cow? No thanks!”

“Oh, now, please. I know you’re feeling the hunger, and I promise you it will only get worse.” He took a step closer.

“Hold it!” I didn’t want him anywhere near me at that point. He’d already made me his midnight snack, apparently, and I was furious. “Let me get this straight. You freakin’ bit me, drank my blood, turned me into a flipping vampire, and now you want me to – to skip off into the night with you, noshing on passing pedestrians as we go?”

Both of his perfect eyebrows shot upward. “You have a most unusual way of putting things, but yes, basically.”

“I refuse to kill anyone.”

“You don’t have a choice.”

“Oh, yes I do. Now piss off.”

He sighed. “I’m so sorry you feel this way. What is your name?”

Ooh. That did it. “What?” It came out as a near-shriek. “You did this to me and didn’t even know my name?” I then called him several things my mother would have smacked me for, and turned to leave.

He was in front of me in a literal flash. Crap.

“Where are you going, lovely lady?”

Lovely – “You’re nuts. I’m going home.”

“My name is Ryland. May I walk with you?”

“Only if you allow me to periodically stomp on your foot as we go.” I would have simply smacked him with one of my shoes, but for some bizarre reason I didn’t seem to be wearing them.

He smiled, in no way perturbed it seemed. “Please tell me your name.”

“Please tell me why you did this to me.”

He shrugged and started to walk away only to turn and beckon me toward him with one hand. “I’ll explain as we walk.”

If I had the ability to scale walls I was unaware of it, and didn’t feel like experimenting. I nodded, jaw out-thrust with annoyance, and joined him.

“You see,” he said, taking me gently by the arm like an old friend, “I was initially attracted by your scent.”

“White Shoulders?”

“Blood-filled throat.”

“Oh.” Gross.

“But as I watched you leaving the bar, I also saw how lovely you are. You could say it was love at first sight.”

Refusing to let myself think of the pun version of that phrase, I shook my head. “I don’t believe in that nonsense.”

“Well, after you’ve been around a few hundred years, maybe you will. Tell me, why don’t you drink alcohol? The lack of it in your bloodstream was one of the things that caught my attention.”

“You talk weird.”

“I’m very old.”

“Great. Well, I was – oh, no! Damn, damn and damn! I’m the designated driver! I remember!”

“What do you remember, sweet lady?”

I really wanted him to stop calling me things like that. “I remember leaving the bar to get a sweater from my car – the air-conditioning in that place was ridiculous. I was out with three of my girlfriends…aw, heck. If they – if anything happens to them, I’m blaming you, Rye Bread, or whatever your name is.”

“Ryland.”

“Right.” We had exited the alley several minutes ago and I recognized my surroundings. We were actually heading away from where I’d parked the car, so I turned around, dragging him with me. “This way.”

“Yes, that’s where your vehicle is, but I thought we’d go for a little stroll first."

He knew where my car was? How? “Wait. Where was I when you, uh, when you did whatever the hell it is you do?”

“I followed you from the bar. You were about to open your car door.”

“And?”

“And I approached you, spoke compulsion into your ear, and you went with me into the alley.” He didn’t sound even a tiny bit apologetic.

I caught myself about to say, “You suck,” and changed it to, “You’re a creep. You know that?”

“Yes, I suppose I am by your standards.”

“You know nothing about my standards!” I disentangled my arm from his and stormed away, determined to get to my car and home without further interference from Mr. Undead.

“Of course I do,” he said calmly, standing a foot in front of me again and stopping my progress abruptly. “I was like you once.”

“What – alive?”

“Yes. Alive and human. I haven’t forgotten everything about it.”

“Goody for you. Get out of my way, please.” I pushed past him. He was not going to get his way. He had already done that once.

When I reached the car, he was leaning back against it, arms crossed, staring up at the night sky with a beatific smile on his magnificent features. I decided I hated him.

“If you’ll tell me your name, I’ll leave you alone.”

I took out my keys. “For how long?”

“At least a week.”

“Ha. I doubt that.”

“I could just break into your car and check your registration. Of course, I’d have to damage something in the process.”

“Why are you such a bully?”

“Because I can be. What’s your name?”

I wasn’t ready to give in. “Miranda.”

“You’re lying.”

“Yup. And that’s all you’re going to get. Remember – you assaulted me. Hell, you murdered me! And now you want me to tell you my name like we’d met on the dance floor?”

“Well, if you consider that life is a dance, we really did.”

I stared at him for a few seconds, then said, “That, Ryland, is worthy of a kick in the shins.”

“How violent you are!”

“Me?! You killed me, remember?” Outrage is hardly an adequate word to describe what I was experiencing right then.

“You’re very stubborn.”

“I am, indeed.”

“So am I. What’s your name? I promise you, I’ll give you no peace until you tell me.”

“Oh, and you will give me peace if I do?”

“Yes.”

I unlocked the door and opened it. “Eleana,” I spat. “My name is Eleana.” Hope you choke on it, too, I added silently as I got into the car. I didn’t check to see what he was doing when I started the engine, but took off into what was left of the night, hoping the whole sunlight thing was only a myth. Since I arrived at my house several minutes after the sun was up and didn’t burn to a crisp, I had to conclude that it was.

But that didn’t change the fact that I was, inexplicably, undeniably, a new-born vampire. Crap.

 

TWO

Ryland hadn’t lied. He left me alone, as promised, and as promised, the hunger had grown worse. By the third day my need for blood was so desperate, I found myself looking for stray mosquitos. In this state, I knew better than to let anyone in. The mailman had a package for me, which I told him through the mail slot in the door to leave on the doorstep. And then there was my cat. She was the first casualty; not in the way you might think, though.

When I got home that horrible first morning, she was near the door as I entered – her usual hi-where’s-my-food-and-how-are-you spot – and immediately inflated herself into a massive ball of spiky black and white fur. Hissing madly, she backed away, then leaped out the nearest open window. She didn’t come back, either. My house is a ranch, meaning it has only one floor. That was lucky for the cat, really. What was luckier was her departure – I might have eventually stuck a straw in her.

On the fourth day, which found me whimpering at the kitchen table, unable to eat regular food and doubled over with hunger for hemoglobin, I went back over all the options I believed were open to me in my condition. None of them were attractive – drain a squirrel, drink what little blood I still had my own veins, or go out and Bela-Lugosi some poor human. No, no, and no.

“You stupid, stubborn fool!” I grated at me. “You didn’t ask for this, but it happened! You just gonna starve to death now?” All right, I thought, none of the logical options work for you – how about the illogical ones? What can you do that isn’t usual yet better?

I sat back and closed my eyes. I needed blood. Where was there any blood I could drink? Human veins, animals, the hospital blood bank…I jumped to my feet, eyes wide. That was it! I’d go to the hospital, tell them I had some kind of condition, and let them supply me. It sure beat trying to steal it! Ha!

Now try explaining this to a seething crowd of vampires who are all about staying undetected by the public. When I’d left the hospital the next day, Ryland was waiting for me. He looked curious, but nothing more – at first. Seems he believed I’d swiped some blood from the coolers or something, so I dispelled that misconception instantly.

“I asked them for blood,” I’d told him, calm with the surety that I’d done the right thing.

“You asked them for blood.”

“I did.”

“And they simply handed it over, did they?”

“Not at first. I had to tell them my problem – not that I’m a vampire, but that I got sick and seemed to have died, but really didn’t.”

His eyes had begun to glitter in an alarming way. “You told them that. I see. And what did they do?”

“Gave me a thorough examination.” I’d laughed, remembering the looks on the doctors’ faces when they realized that while my brain activity was normal, maybe even a little more than normal, I was flatlining according to the heart monitor. “I didn’t tell them some jackass bit me on the neck, if that’s what’s worrying you. I mean, I knew they would refuse to believe in vampires, so I let them draw their own medical conclusions.”

“Which were?”

“That I needed fresh human blood to survive, and that I had to digest it like food, not have it injected or anything.”

Ryland had gnawed on the side of his inner cheek for a few seconds, after which everything became a blur. Apparently, he’d grabbed me by the hand and run off at vampire-speed with me in tow. When he stopped, we were outside a huge deserted house (well, it looked deserted at first) in a part of town I didn’t recognize. “I’ll try to protect you,” he had snarled, “but don’t count on it doing any good.”

This didn’t bode well. But hey, I was already dead, wasn’t I? Had he left me alone after drinking from me, I’d also be graveyard dead and probably should be in any event. So who cared if – “Wait. Protect me? From whom?”

“The others. Let’s go.” He hadn’t let go yet. “Stay close.”

“Yeah, like you’re giving me a choice here.” I had glared pointedly at my hand clasped inextricably in his.

“Never mind that.” He’d started up the front walk, dragging me with him.

We’d gone up the steps to the front door which he opened with a skeleton key (naturally). The immediate interior was a large foyer decorated appropriately in black, white and red. I noted this in passing, wondering vaguely why these whackos had such small imaginations and a total lack of decorating sense, but the greater part of my thinking was about what was upsetting Ryland so much. I mean, it’s not like I’d let out some deep secret about modern vampires. Hell, I didn’t know any, except the annoying prick who’d turned me, and even he was still a big mystery to me.

He pulled me to a set of double doors on one side of the foyer where he stopped, hissed at me to stay quiet, and executed some odd secret-signal knock on its surface. Right as I was asking myself where Spanky and Alfalfa were, the door opened.

What stood there could never have been mistaken for one of the Little Rascals. A woman, whose age was even more indeterminate than Rylands, stood back and frowned down at us. That’s correct. Down. She was well over six feet tall, had pure white hair that fell straight almost to her waist, alabaster, fragile-looking skin and eyes that glittered like highly-polished marcasite. She was dressed in a close-fitting dress that went to the floor, and was thin in a really, really, really creepy way. Her face would have been beautiful were it not more skull than human. I nearly wet myself.

“Cardana,” said Ryland, bowing. “I bring our newest child, who has become somewhat difficult.”

The woman – or whatever the hell she was – leaned down a fraction to stare into my eyes, her own narrowing. “Difficult?” The word was a whisper, a harsh one, that slid past my eardrums like sandpaper. “How are you being difficult, little wormling?”

Awesome. From “sweet lady” to “wormling.” Yeah, she and I were going to get along famously… “I’m not sure,” I answered, my own voice sounding like that of a petulant two-year-old, further horrifying me. What the hell?!

“Let us talk.” She turned away and we entered the room. I was surprised to realize that Ryland was as hesitant to follow as I was, and perversely, this gave me strength.

Ever watch a horror movie where the main character is walking along a hallway or something, and as he or she is going, it lights up enough to see what’s a few feet ahead, growing dark again as soon as that particular spot is left behind? That’s what this was like. I knew we were in a large room – could sense the space around me – but all I could see was the carpet in front of my feet, and peripheral glances of furniture and such that would become momentarily illuminated as I passed. The rest remained in deep shadow, and those terrifying shadows closed tightly behind us a we walked. A moment or two later, we could see Cardana again (what kind of name was that?), who had stopped and was facing us once more.

As soon as we halted a few feet in front of her, the shadows blew back into the walls, exposing the room’s occupants and contents. Others who looked more like Ryland were standing about, a few sitting, the furnishings sumptuous but very old. One or two, maybe more (I didn’t try very hard to seek them out), were of the same type and form as Carnata. None of either type was smiling.

“Dear Ryland has brought a New Turning to us. He claims this child, this wormling, is somehow being difficult. I would have him explain this to us all.” She hadn’t looked directly at anyone in particular, her disattached stare making her seem blind.

Ryland, still holding my hand, stood a bit straighter, the prisoner facing the judge for his sentencing. “She will not feed. Instead, she has gone to a hospital and revealed her state.”

A rustling as some vampires moved closer, hisses, glares, and I knew this was not information they wanted to hear.

“Being human,” Ryland continued, “they would not conclude the obvious, and this- ” He released me, shoving me in front of himself with clear contempt. “This stubborn creature did not tell them how she came to be as she is, but did request treatment. They studied her, they tested her, and in the end, they agreed to feed her.”

And this is bad, how? I wanted to ask.

“They will begin looking for others like her,” said one vampire who approached me from the left. He wrinkled his nose and poked me in the arm.

“Hey!”

“Why did you do this?” asked another, fury in his expression.

“I was hungry?”

“You could have fed the way you are supposed to feed, stupid creature!”

Okay. That did it. “There’s no ‘supposed to’ unless I had chosen to be this way, you moron! I was given no choice, so now I’m choosing how to surive, and if you don’t like it, you can go screw yourself!” As soon as I said that, I recognized that it might not have been a very smart move.

Muttering. The sound of angrily muttering vampires is totally surreal. The sound grew, a crescendo of weirdness that was also frightening in the extreme. Were they going to tear me apart? Crap. They began as one to move toward me, enclosing me in a circle of death. Looked like I was going to die again, this time permanently, so I stood my ground, determined to remain defiant – and stubborn – to the end.

Humans can’t hear dog-whistles. Vampires can. The piercing, painful noise stopped everyone cold, and I covered my ears to block it out, tears in my tightly-closed eyes. Then it stopped and I faced the direction from which it had come – Cardana. I expected to see her holding one of the damnable things near her mouth, but saw something unexpected and shiver-inducing instead.

Her arms were straight at her sides, her head raised, her mouth still open. The sound – what I’d assumed was a dog whistle – had come from her own throat.

She lowered her head, closed her mouth, and scowled at us. “Fools!” She came a step closer to me and put a bony hand on my head. “Ryland failed to keep her close, forcing her to find her own way. She was too recently alive to know better, and should have been instructed.” She put out her other hand, and with the nail of its index finger, slashed Ryland’s throat. “Drink, darlings,” she said, nodding at the crowd. “This is his punishment. Perhaps he will be more careful next time.”

In an instant, the other vampires had carried Ryland to the floor where they knelt over and on him, taking turns drinking from his open neck. Gross, gross, gross….maybe I could have just a sip?...Ack! What was I thinking?

“Your name, wormling.” Carnada was whispering right into my ear this time.

“Eleana.”

She smiled, revealing an entire mouthful of sharp teeth, not only the assumed two. “You are clever. You give me hunger.” She took me by the shoulders and leaned down. “I like you, beautiful wormling, and must taste you.” Before I could protest or try to pull away, her mouth was on the side of my throat, all those needle-sharp teeth piercing my skin, and in a sudden wave of delirium, my knees buckled and I felt myself swaying into her embrace…..

THREE

How do I say this….oh, yeah.

Hahahahahaha!!!!

Score one for the newbie! I somehow managed, by way of some very human common sense, to throw the whole vampire culture into chaos. Nice. They’re now divided between those who want to keep things secretive and monstrous, and those who are willing to try the easier route – mine – of simply getting their supply from the hospital blood banks. Apparently, no one had ever done something like this before. Granted, even the ones willing to try my way admit there’s no substitute for the taste and warmth of freshly-sucked hemoglobin (ew!), but they agree it’s a lot less dangerous.

So now there’s this huge schism, kind of like the way religions started, don’t you think? Carnata hates what I’ve done, but for some reason she seems to like me

. Having said that, I suppose I should back-track a little.

After she snacked on me, I passed out for a while and woke up some time later on a sofa. Same room, same muttering vampires. Ryland was somehow okay, but he hadn’t looked good – at all – and I told him so. He happened to be reclining in a chair beside the sofa when I opened my eyes, and I’d stared at him for a while, surprised first of all that he was even “alive.” I put that word in quotes because technically, he’s already dead, but…maybe I should have said he was animated. I’m still not sure if what vampires have is actual life.

Anyhow, after getting over that unexpected discovery, I took a better look at him. He’d been pale to begin with, but now his skin looked like old paper, and dark purple shadows circled his eyes, eclipsing their usual glitter. If that’s the right way to say it. What I mean is that his eyes looked dull, rather like those of a dead fish. I almost giggled.

“Gee, Ryland,” I’d said, my voice amazing because it wasn’t at all hoarse or anything like that. “You look kinda…drained.” I believe I bit back a guffaw.

“If had the energy,” he had replied, not bothering to look directly at me, “I’d hurt you for that. Vampire puns are the worst…” His voice had faded on the last word and he’d put his head back against the chair’s cushion, his lids closing.

I had sat up. Around me, the other vampires had been doing various things, but all of it seemed related to me in one way or another – some were glaring at me, some very obviously ignoring me, still other sliding glances in my direction as they spoke in whispers to each other. It was very weird, I must say.

“I was right – you are quite tasty even as a vampire.” Carnata had glided over to the sofa, her pointy little teeth glittering in her death’s head smile.

“Why did you do that? Bite me, I mean.”

“To claim you as part of our clan.”

Yup. They have clans. Turns out they aren’t all exactly friendly with each other, either (that sounds really odd if you say it out loud).

“And that’s important to you…why?”

“A clan member turned you. The protocol dictates that you also must be of our clan.”

This was getting almost Hollywood, I remember thinking. “Does your, er, clan have a name?”

“Of course, silly wormling. How else would we identify ourselves? We are the Ur.”

“The er….?”

Then she spelled it for me and told me I needed to take it seriously because they were the oldest clan on earth.

“As opposed to the clans from other planets?”

“You waste your sarcasm on me, wormling.”

Before I could ask her why she kept calling me that, one of the silently glaring-and-seething vampires had approached and demanded to know whether or not I was going to be punished. And before Carnata could reply, one of the whispering-in-a-small-knot-of-vampires vampire interrupted and declared that some of them felt my idea was smart.

That was when I slipped off and returned to the sofa – it was obvious by the abrupt onset of angry hissing (vampires do a lot of that when they’re pissed) that the discussion was about to go over the cliff and become a mega-huge argument. Turns out I was right. Again.

I don’t know how long it would have taken for everyone to calm down, but I remember Carnata standing there like a marble statue and letting the rest slug it out among themselves. Only when one of the hissing ones jumped a whisperer with the obvious intention of tearing his throat out, did she do that crazy dog-whistle thing again. I saw her open her mouth, lifting her face toward the ceiling, and immediately covered my ears.

I tried very, very hard not to laugh. I really did. However, a soft snort escaped into the ensuing silence, and I had to turn it into a cough quickly to avoid being pounced on. These guys are psycho – did I mention that?

I was still of the me-and-them mentality, not yet having accepted my situation fully enough to use “we.”

Three days after the Eleana-Screwed-Things-Up incident, the argument was still raging. I, however, was doing fine, having gone to the hospital that morning for my daily blood-fix. Bleh. If nothing else, it makes me feel as if I’ve not completely relinquished my humanity. At least there’s that.

The cat still hadn’t returned, and I resigned myself to her being gone for good. I mean, if the one who paid your salary suddenly turned into the tax-collector, wouldn’t you quit? Trixie was no fool (yeah, that’s her name, stop laughing).

After my “breakfast” I left the hospital with two more bags of the stuff – one for lunch and the other for supper, of course – and went home to…did I mention that I’d lost my job over this nonsense? Before I finally figured out how to get blood without committing murder, I had stayed home. Understandable, yes? Sure, I could easily have called in sick, but I’m really bad at lying, and I didn’t think it would go over too well if I called in dead. Besides, I was so freaked out, I was even unable to talk to my friends, much less my boss, so I became what employers call a no-call-no-show, which is grounds for dismissal.

Come to think of it, none of my friends ever bothered to call me to find out why I never came back to the club. Did they think I’d found some hot guy and…okay, I did, but not in that way. They must’ve assumed I’d gone off with someone and abandoned them. So now they were too ticked off at me to even call, was that it? I don’t know. I almost don’t care. It isn’t like I can see any of them again, at least not until I figure out how to fight off the nearly overwhelming urge to bite people.

See, that’s the worst part. Even though I’d solved the hunger problem, this new nature I had, this undead-ness, had its own ideas about how I should behave. In fact, I was in the middle of mulling that over when the doorbell rang. Sorry it took so long to get to that.

I didn’t answer right away, fearing it might be someone I knew. A moment later the bell was rung again, this time accompanied by loud knocking. I grabbed the sofa pillow and was about to pull it over my ears (did I mention that being a vampire gives you insanely sensitive hearing?) when Ryland started bellowing at me from the other side.

I so didn’t want to deal with him right then.

“Eleana, you must open this door!”

I obeyed. He looked quite agitated. “Don’t tell me I have to invite you in before you cross my thresh- ”

Apparently not. He pushed past me and went into the livingroom. “Look,” he began when I joined him, “you have to do something about this mess you caused.”

“No, Ryland. The mess you caused. If you hadn’t turned me into a blood-sucker, none of this would be happening.”

“Why won’t you play by the rules, Eleana?”

“Play? You guys are playing, are you?”

“You know exactly what I mean!” He had recovered completely by this time, and his eyes were doing that glittery thing again.

“What’s the names of the other clans?” I gave him a nice smile and sat on the loveseat.

“What are the names,” he murmured, correcting my English. I really didn’t like this guy. “There’s the Pharoah clan, the Ming clan, the Celt clan, and several others from various parts of the world and North America.”

When my parents were young, there was a British pop-rock band called the Manfred Mann. Seemed to me these clans were named after places or people where they were founded, and I told myself it was a good thing this pop-rock group hadn’t spawned a clan of vampires, too.

“Why are you laughing now?” he demanded angrily.

“Never mind – sorry.” I resumed my straight face. “Why does Carnata call me a wormling?”

“Oh, that.” He actually looked embarrassed for a second or two. “It’s a bad vampire joke, I’m afraid. See, when a person dies, he becomes…worm-food, colloquially speaking. So - ”

“I get it. That’s horrible!”

“It is.”

“So what are you doing here?”

“I told you, Eleana. You stirred up a proverbial hornet’s nest, and I don’t think anyone but you can fix it.”

“In other words, Carnata sent you here, and failure will mean getting your throat slit again, right?”

“Pretty much.”

I almost felt bad for him. But since at that point I was still feeling much worse for myself, I didn’t have enough empathy left to offer. “Sucks to be you, then,” I said without thinking.

A split second later, Ryland had me pinned to the wall, his fangs making speech difficult. “Stop the bad jokes, you little fool!”

“Let go of me.”

“I should rip your heart out!”

“Yeah, and that would go over great with Carnata since I’d be too dead to help.”

He let go and I slid down the wall but didn’t fall. Did I mention that I’m ridiculously strong now, too? I suppose that’s good. I smoothed the front of my shirt, shaking my head. “What’s up with her, by the way? Is she Skeletor’s daughter or something? Why does she look like that, and that reminds me – why don’t I have fangs like the rest of you?” Not that I wanted them.

“Who is Skeletor?”

“Seriously? Do you live under a large rock or something?” Unbelievable. “Come here.” I went to my laptop, opened it and signed on, then Googled Skeletor.

Ryland stared at the screen for several long seconds before doing the last thing I expected. He burst out laughing. He stumbled to the couch, collapsing onto it and holding his stomach, his laughter causing my own lips to twitch upward.

After a while, I started to get worried. “Uh, Ryland?”

He put up a hand and got himself under control, gulping and wiping his eyes. I don’t know why. Vampires can’t produce bodily fluids (which is the reason, incidentally, I didn’t actually wet my pants when I first saw Carnata – I couldn’t). But wipe his eyes he did. Habit, I suppose. “That was…too…oh, my.” He drew in a huge, shaky breath, exhaling it with a “whew” ending.

“Can you answer my questions now? I noticed there were others like her, as well.”

“Please sit, Eleana. This is going to take a while. When I’m done, however, I’ll need to go get some nourishment, and then we have to go back to Ur House.”

“Her house?”

“No, Ur House. Ur. Like the name of our clan.”

“Doesn’t that get confusing?”

“It does. Now be quiet while I explain things. Can you do that?”

I sat across from him, nodding, and sat back in silence.

Satisfied, he leaned forward and began my first Vampire Lesson.

Impressum

Texte: Judith A. Colella
Tag der Veröffentlichung: 04.08.2012

Alle Rechte vorbehalten

Widmung:
NOTICE OF COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT The contents of this book is protected by United States Copyright laws and may not, in whole or in part, be reproduced by anyone other than the author. Further, no portion of this work, nor the book in its entirety, may be offered by any third party(ies) in any form, either electronic (such as a PDF document or an ebook) or physical (such as a paperback or included in a hard-copy publication) without the express, written permission by, or contractual agreement with, the author. Its availability on BookRix is an example of the latter availability and may be read, in situ, but not downloaded by any foreign entities nor copied by same.