Fate

“That’s where Jack goes to eat, isn’t it?” I gulped.

  “Yes. They have donors there. And most of them know that’s what they are. ” Mae tilted her head, thinking. “They call them bloodwhores. But mostly it’s people and vampires doing what anybody does at a club. ”

  “Getting drunk and looking for sex?” I raised an eyebrow.

  “Some of them, yes,” Mae laughed. “But it’s all in fun. ”

  “It’s gonna be a blast,” Milo said. “I’m so excited to get out of this house and actually do something. Especially with other vampires! Aren’t you excited?”

  “Yeah,” I nodded, but I didn’t really know how to feel about it.

  I’d never met any other vampires, not that I knew of, anyway. I’d love to see what they’d be like. And dancing and being out is exactly how I wanted to spend my last few days before school.

  On the other hand, I was going to be in a room full of vampires, which still had some frightening implications. Thinking about Jack eating made me physically ill, and the prospect of seeing where he got his “food” didn’t thrill me either. There could be someone there he had bitten, someone who knew him more intimately than I did, and that thought made me sick.

  “Are you okay, love?” Mae asked me.

  “Yeah, I’m fine,” I lied.

  “You look really pale,” Milo agreed. His eyes softened with worry. “Are you sure you’re okay? Do you not want to go? We don’t have to go. We just thought it might be fun. ” He desperately wanted to do this, and he would give it up for me, so I just shook my head.

  “I want to. Really. I do,” I said, and sighing, I decided to explain my ambivalence. “I don’t want to see anyone that Jack’s… bitten. ”

  “Oh,” Mae nodded.

  “What?” Milo gave her an odd look.

  “You don’t understand because you’ve never been bitten,” Mae told him, then turned to me. “Jack doesn’t feel it like you feel it. Being bitten is not the same as biting, and it’s not the same when you do it for food, versus pleasure. ”

  “I don’t follow,” I shook my head. Milo sat on the bed, on top of the clothes, and listened. Apparently, this was new information to him, too.

  “It feels amazing,” she said. “Few things in life are better than drinking someone’s blood. But in order for the prey-predator relationship to work, humans willingly give themselves to us, and that happens because they develop an emotional attachment that we don’t feel. For us, it’s purely physical. ”

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  “That sounds like something a guy says after he cheats on you,” I pointed out dryly.

  “I suppose it does,” she smiled. “But it’s the truth. Your feelings on this are slightly misleading. Your only experience is with Peter, and you’re bonded. When you love each other, it’s intimate and intense. But just eating, that’s nothing really. ”

  “Uh huh,” I said skeptically.

  “Let me put it this way: Ezra bites other people,” Mae said. “And on occasion, so do I. This doesn’t bother me, and it doesn’t bother him when I do it. If he let someone bite him, that would bother me. That would be tantamount to cheating. ”

  “I think I understand. ”

  What I had felt with Peter had been because we were already bonded and I was victim. If anyone bit me, I’d feel similarly, but if I bit someone else, I’d feel good, but without all the emotional connection.

  “When you’re a vampire, you’ll understand,” she assured me, but that only touched on another raw nerve. Realizing this, she smiled and brushed past it. “Anyway, let’s get you dressed. ”

  “I know you love jeans, but I’m thinking a skirt, definitely. ” Milo hopped off the bed so he could inspect the clothes.

  I just agreed with everything they said as Mae and Milo sifted through the clothes. Milo spoke animatedly about everything. Being a vampire sat very well with him. I had never seen him so comfortable in his own skin before. Jack’s tutelage must’ve been helping, because it was an improvement from even a few days ago.

  Mae did my makeup, since that was one area that Milo had never been any help with. He left to finish getting ready while she styled my hair and assured me that I would have fun. I asked why she wasn’t going, and she just shrugged and said she was too old for it.

  When she finished, she paraded me out into the kitchen to show the boys. Jack leaned on the island, looking rather handsome. He traded in his shorts uniform for dark washed denim and a fitted shirt.

  As soon as he saw me, he grinned happily and let out a long whistle, making Matilda bark.

  “Look at you. ” Jack stood up straight and looked me over. His eyes lingered at the hem of my skirt, and I squirmed. “I might like that skirt even more than I like those little short things you were wearing this morning. ”

  “Jack,” Mae said disapprovingly.

  “You’re the one that dressed her up,” Jack pointed out.

  “Just be good,” Mae warned him.

  “I’m always good,” he muttered.

  “You do look really good,” Milo said.

  “So do you,” I told him. He’d changed his shirt, and he did something infinitesimal to his hair, but he did look good.

  “I want you kids to have fun, but you need to be careful,” Mae said gravely. “And I’m talking to you, Jack. You need to keep your eyes on both of them. Milo’s really young, and Alice is… well, you need to watch them both. ”

  “I know,” Jack rolled eyes. “I got it when we had this conversation twenty times this morning. ” He started edging towards the door, and I followed.

  “Stay close to Jack, and don’t go anywhere with anyone, okay?” Mae said, looking at me directly. “And just remember. Vampires are like men. They only think about one thing. ”

  “So vampire men really only think about one thing?” Milo asked with a deviant glint in his eye.

  “You only think about one thing?” I teased, looking up at Jack.

  “I’m thinking about one thing right now. ” His tone was joking, but he looked at me seriously. He felt dangerously close to me, and my pulse quickened.

  “Jack!” Mae snapped.

  “Being good!” Jack turned away from me.

  “You better be,” she said. “I’m trusting you. They’re both in your care, and I expect them to come back in the exact same condition they are now. Is that clear?”

  “It’s been clear all day. ” Jack walked backwards to the door, so he could mount his escape while still looking at her, and Milo and I trailed right after him. “You know, I’m middle aged, Mae. You think you’d start trusting me by now. ”

  “I would if you acted your age for a change!” Mae called after him, but he was already slipping into the garage.

  I waved at her before I left, and she pursed her lips and hugged herself. She already regretted her decision to let us go.

  I didn’t feel that nervous. After all, I was with two vampires that would kill anyone that tried to mess with me. What was the worst that could happen?

  - 13 -

  We parked by First Avenue, but it wasn’t until we got out of the car that I realized that it was the same parking garage where’d I first met Jack. He said he’d just gotten done eating when he ran into me, and then saved my life from some ridiculous hooligans.

  It was so weird to think that if I hadn’t stumbled into the garage that night, my entire life would’ve turned out different.

  “You coming?” Jack asked, looking at me curiously. He and Milo had taken a couple steps ahead of me, but I stood just outside the car.

  “Yeah,” I nodded, and slowly followed them.

  People littered the sidewalk, doing similar things as us. Summer was ending, and girls were getting the short skirts and halter tops out of their system. The Minneapolis skyline towered over us, and the music from clubs and voices of people echoed off the buildings.

  I looked down the street at
the brightly lit marquees announcing clubs and restaurants and plays, and I wondered what there would be outside marking the vampire club.

  “What’s this place called anyway?” I asked.

  “It doesn’t really have a name,” Jack said. “It’s like an underground thing. ”

  “Well, what do people call it? Like, the ones that don’t know it’s a vampire club? Or even the ones that do?” I asked.

  People were probably within hearing distance, but I didn’t lower my voice or hide the term “vampire. ” They were drunk or on cell-phones or too embroiled in their own drama to notice me. Most of them only gave a fleeting glance at Jack and Milo.

  “I don’t know,” Jack shrugged. “I think they call it V or something. ”

  “That’s not very creative,” I scowled.

  “Yeah, I thought it’d be something sexier,” Milo agreed.

  “It’s an underground vampire club,” Jack scoffed. “It doesn’t need a ‘creative’ name to entice people. ”

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  “He has a point,” Milo said.

  “I still expected more from them,” I said.

  Jack directed us to turn off Hennepin, leading us away from the glittery lights of the gay club flashing down the street. People were still around, but much less than there were before. Without all the bright lights announcing venues, the yellow streetlamps made it seem much darker. The traffic had even dissipated.

  “We’re almost there,” Jack slowed. He held out his hand to me, and I didn’t understand so I looked at him. “Give me your hand. You’re with me and I want everyone to know it. ”

  “Okay?” I let Jack take my hand, and looked over to Milo to make sure he wasn’t going to growl and attack me for touching Jack.

  “He’s got it under control,” Jack said, slowing so we were barely walking, and Milo stayed a few paces ahead of us. When Jack spoke, he lowered his voice to just above a whisper. “Stay by me. And try not to get excited or think about Peter. But if you do, you find me. If somebody’s gonna bite you, it’s gonna be me. ”

  “Is that a threat or a promise?” I smiled up at him.

  “Both,” Jack laughed. “No. Sorry. Neither. I’m being good. But just stay by me. ”

  “You’re making this sound dangerous. ” My stomach filled with butterflies, and I thought of the worried look on Mae’s face. “Why are we going here if it’s hazardous?”

  “It’s slightly riskier than hanging out with us in the first place,” Jack said. “But you needed to get out and have fun. And I won’t let anything happen to you. So…” He shrugged. “Milo. Hold up. ”

  Jack stopped next to a nondescript doorway in the middle of the block. The nearest streetlight had completely gone out, making it eerily dark for downtown. He squeezed my hand briefly, and I felt his temperature warm up just slightly, but it wasn’t out of control.

  Milo came back to where we were standing, and Jack nodded at a large black door. Milo raised his eyebrows, and then opened it.

  The door opened into a narrow entryway that glowed red from the bulb above. Two giant bouncers stood there, nearly blocking our path inside. They nodded at Jack and Milo, but something about the way they looked at me when I walked past assured me that they were vampires, and I hurried past them.

  At the end of the narrow hall, a steep set of cement stairs led down into black nothingness. The only light in the stairway came from the red one by the front door.

  We walked into complete darkness, but that wasn’t a problem for most attendees. For my puny human eyes, it was disorienting. I clung onto Jack, and he never let me go.

  I could hear the music pulsing, some kind of heavy electronica. Jack whispered that we had reached the main level, but I still couldn’t see anything. We walked a little farther, and Jack opened the door, bathing us in cool, blue light and making the walls echo with the music.

  Considering we were in the basement, the ceilings of the room were amazingly high above the dance floor. Five hundred or more people smashed onto the floor, dancing wildly. Slender arms waved in the air, and bodies moved delicately and perfectly in time with the music. Never had I seen movements so graceful.

  A long, metallic bar lined the far side of the room, and based on the bottles lining the back wall, I assumed it was an actual bar, full of alcoholic drinks for the humans. Several very attractive men and women stood behind it, manning it for drinks. The stools in front of it were full, and a line of sweaty humans waited to be served.

  I turned to look for Milo, but he’d already disappeared onto the dance floor. Jack smiled at me and pulled me into the crowd.

  The people moving around us were stunningly beautiful. A girl with pixie white-blonde hair smiled at me, and I noticed the fading bite marks on her neck.

  Jack moved gracefully, and I tried to keep up with him. He kept his hands on me the entire time, keeping me close to him, and I loved it. The blue from the light made his eyes glow, and his happiness was infectious. The speed of my dancing and Jack’s proximity made my heart pound.

  Other bodies pushed up against me as people danced around us. It almost felt like they were grabbing at me, but I had to be imagining things. Then I felt a sharp prick as someone scratched the back of my neck, and Jack stopped dancing.

  They hadn’t scratched hard enough to draw blood, thankfully. Jack kept his arm around me, and when I looked around, I saw the crowd had closed in on us.

  Jack started to lead me off the floor, towards a doorway into another room. Someone touched me, letting their fingertips glide lightly down my arm, almost caressing me. I looked back, expecting whoever touched me to slink away into the crowd, but he just stood there. Not dancing, not moving, just staring at me.

  He was gorgeous, with thick hair slicked back. His eyes were a mesmerizing black and burned straight through me. He smiled at me in a seductively evil way.

  I’d been frozen in a trance, and Jack dragged me away. When I noticed it, I managed to look away, and the way my lungs burned reminded to breathe.

  The crowd broke, and the light shifted from blue to dull red. We slipped through a doorway into the next room. The walls dampened sound of music.

  This room was smaller than the last and dressed more like a bar or a coffee shop than a club. Lots of doors and darkened hallways led out of it. Soft couches filled the room.

  A small bar sat in a dark corner with a bartender behind it. There weren’t any bottles lining the wall, and I figured it had to be an entirely different kind of bar.

  On the couch nearest to us, a stunningly beautiful woman laid with her head lulled back. Her clothing was black leather and so tight I couldn’t believe she could move. A pretty young girl was curled up on her lap. Her eyes were closed, and a thin line of blood trailed down her neck. The vampire holding her looked at me and smiled as she licked the blood from her lips.

  “Stop it,” Jack murmured in my ear.

  “What?” I asked, pulling my attention from the vampire to look about the room.

  Scenes similar to the one on the couch played out all over. Some people (or vampires) were simply sitting and talking, and some were just making out. But others were openly feeding on humans.

  As soon as we entered the room, everyone seemed to turn and look at us. Vampires with their stunning, entrancing eyes, kept fixing their gaze on me, and I would forget to breathe.

  “Stop,” Jack repeated and jerked my hand so I would focus on him.

  “What?” I looked up at him, away from everyone in the room.

  “Don’t look at anyone,” he said.

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  “Why not?”

  “You keep letting them… captivate you. ” He looked over the top of my head, and he was starting to think that maybe this was a bad idea. “Don’t do that. ”

  “Sorry,” I said, but I wasn’t exactly sure how to fix that.

  “Don’t be sorry. Just…” He shook his head.
“Come on. ” He pulled me off to the side of the room, to a mostly empty couch.

  When he sat down, I sat close to him. On the other side of him was a girl with hair that shown purple under the light, and her lipstick was black. She’d been sipping something out of a tall wine glass, and she turned her attention to us.

  She smiled, mostly at me, and her fangs were more pronounced than Jack’s were. Almost comically so, and I wondered if that was a natural occurrence or if she did something to make them like that.

  “You’re new here,” she purred, directly to me, and her voice sounded like honey and helium.

  “Yeah,” I said, and Jack dropped his arm around me.

  “You, I’ve seen around before. ” She narrowed her eyes at him. Her makeup was so thick and heavy around her eyes, as if she wore a kind of mask. She bit her lip, carefully so the fangs wouldn’t tear her skin, and tried to place him. “Did we fuck?”

  “No, I can’t say that we have,” Jack replied quickly. I tensed up, which I knew was a bad idea since I was supposed to keep my heart rate down.

  It never occurred to me that Jack had sex. I realized that vampires probably had sex, that Mae and Ezra did, and I definitely considered the prospect of me having sex with Jack, but I had never thought about it actually happening. Not only had Jack most likely bitten girls here, he had probably slept with some of them.

  “Pity,” the girl said, and her eyes dropped back to me. Her smile tilted, and she noticed the change in my heart rate. “So you’re that kind of girl. ”

  “What kind of girl is that?” I asked tightly.

  “Where are my manners?” She laughed, a tinkley, fragile sound, like breaking glass. “I haven’t even introduced myself. My name is Violet. ”

  She held out her hand to me and only me. It was covered in one of those lace fingerless gloves that Madonna used to wear, and I took her hand and shook it.

  “I’m Alice. ” I let go of her lacy, tepid hand and looked up at Jack. “This is Jack. ”

  “Jack. ” She clicked her tongue and looked at him. “We never-”

  “Nope,” he repeated with an edge to his voice.

  “Are you sure?” Violet looked dubious. “Cause I have a really excellent memory, and I could swear that we knocked boots?” She winked at me and elbowed Jack playfully in the ribs.

  “I’m quite certain,” he said icily.

  “Yeah! You did this thing-”

  “Stop,” Jack told her, his voice low and even. “I know what you’re doing, and I want you to stop. ” She batted her eyes innocently, and he turned to me. “When she mentioned it the first time, your heart sped up, and now she’s just saying things to make it race. She’s trying to set you off. ”

  “It’s beating like a moth caught in jar,” Violet smiled wistfully at me. “I can’t help myself. It sounds so beautiful. ”

  “I’m sorry. ”

  “You have nothing to be sorry for,” Jack reassured me quietly.