Chapter Seven
I glanced nervously up at the sky that started to grow noticeably lighter as I stepped out of the car. Logically I knew I had an hour or more before it became a problem, but my skin started to feel itchy and crawly and I couldn’t get in there fast enough. Then again, Bishop had been out and about during daylight hours the day before with only a pair of sunglasses for protection. Maybe I was getting all itchy for no good reason? I had a zillion and one questions, but Bishop looked a little agitated. I decided to leave well enough alone for the moment, and trail along behind him as he led me to a private entrance at the rear of the building. For whatever reason, he had decided not to take me to jail, and that was good enough for me at the time.
Following him up a narrow flight of stairs, I waited patiently as he unlocked the heavy metal door at the top, expecting to see a storage or office space. A place you kept people on ice until you were ready to turn them in, I imagined. Instead the floor above the retail space had been renovated to a generous, open living space. The décor was minimalist, almost Spartan. A cluster of furniture centered around a big, flat screen TV mounted over an electric fireplace in a corner of the room. The walls were mostly bare, with an occasional splash of color provided by renaissance artwork. A single bedroom/bathroom combination formed the only room that wasn’t open to the main living space and I got a peek at neat rows of books lining the walls inside. A small kitchenette lay to the right of the front door.
“You live here?” I asked in surprise, stepping deeper into the room, my eyes lighting on the grand piano tucked incongruously into the corner. Bishop seemed content to leave me to explore on my own, heading straight for the kitchen counter, which was littered with tactical gear and electronic gadgets I didn’t recognize.
“Yes.”
“Huh, I would have thought you’d have a place underground, not on the top floor.” I went to the window and looked down to the quiet street below. There were also a bakery and a book store in the same building and a bank across the street.
“There isn’t a basement in the building, and it would have attracted too much attention at the time I bought the place to have one excavated,” he replied, pulling off his jacket and tossing it at a coat hook mounted to the wall. With the jacket off, I could see he had several weapons strapped to his body, and with as close as I’d been to him, I wondered why I hadn’t noticed before. While I watched, he unstrapped them all, laying the holsters neatly along the breakfast bar.
“You own the whole building?” For some reason that struck me as odd, vampires owning property, but it made sense. Better to be your own landlord than risk someone snooping through your private affairs.
“I do, as well as the one across the street. And no, I wouldn’t rather sleep in the vault. This place suits me just fine.”
“What about the sun? Isn’t that a problem?”
Bishop picked up a small electronic device. “Not for the prepared. I have automatic shutters at every window, they block out the light. Come here for a minute, I want to check something.”
I obeyed him without question, curious to see what he had in his hands. “What is that thing?”
“I want to test your blood.” He held his hand out for mine, sticking my finger into a little lead attached to the box. It reminded me of the thing they use to check the oxygen in your blood at the doctor’s office.
“Will it hurt? Ow!” I scowled at the prick of the needle; the machine at the doctor’s never did that.
“Oh, it’s not that bad,” he chuckled, releasing my hand. I snatched it back to inspect the damage, but my body had already healed the pinprick.
“What are you testing for?” I leaned closer to study the readout, but it was all Greek to me. “Bishop?” I prompted when he didn’t reply.
“That can’t be right. Give me your other hand.”
“I’m pretty sure the same blood is running through that hand as this one,” I frowned, handing over the other one, bracing myself for the sting. Once again, there wasn’t a trace of the wound as soon as I pulled my hand free. “What does it say?” I asked, when he frowned over the display.
Looking up, he studied my face carefully, searching for… I had no idea what he could be looking for. “Anja, I’m going to ask you this one more time, and I promise I won’t be mad if you suddenly remember something you forgot to tell me before. Do you have any idea who your Sire could possibly be?”
“No, of course not. Don’t you think I would have told you by now if I did?”
“And you have no clue at all, nothing that comes to mind, nothing odd that’s happened to you in the past few weeks or months that you think might possibly be related?”
“No, nothing. Bishop, you’re starting to scare me, what’s wrong?”
“According to this, you’ve been a vampire for closer to four hundred years rather than a fledgling less than a day old.”
My mouth dropped open as I stared back at him, at a loss for words. “How is that even possible?”
“It’s not an exact science, but it’s fairly accurate for anyone born in the last two hundred years. I’ve seen false readings before when a vampire’s been turned by an especially powerful vampire line but this…”
“What?”
“This means it’s very likely you could have been turned by an Ellri.”
I stared at Bishop blankly, waiting for him to explain what that meant, but he stood lost in thought. “Bishop?” I asked gently after a few minutes. “Pretend I don’t know anything about vampire culture or society. What’s an Ellri?”
“What?” he looked up, “Oh, sorry. It’s an old word for Elder, it’s the name for natural born vampires that created the vampires species we know today.”
“So my Sire is…”
“Possibly one of the oldest living beings on the planet.”
I let that marinate for a moment before a distinction came to my lips. “Well, not living, because we’re undead, right?”
“No, the surviving Ellri are alive. They were never reborn like you and I were, they’re immortal.”
“And they’re out there walking around, kidnapping women and turning them into vampires, abandoning them for you to clean up?” What kind of elders were they?
“No… you don’t get it. The Ellri are extremely reclusive, they haven’t embraced the modern age very well. I can count the surviving ones on one hand. It’s been easily a hundred years or more since I last saw one, and I can’t remember the last time one chose to turn a human. Something this monumental would be big news in the vampire community. When this gets out, you’ll be a celebrity of sorts.”
A celebrity in vampire society? Unbidden, visions of vampire paparazzi swam in my mind and I shook my head to clear it. “Why are they so reclusive?” If I was a centuries old vampire, there wouldn’t be much I’d be afraid of.
“I don’t know. Like I said, it’s rare they move around and they’re not very sneaky, they usually travel with a full court. None of them have set foot in the United States as far as I know. As a rule they don’t do well with change, they honor tradition. That’s what made me first suspect one was involved when I saw how you’d been turned, but I can’t imagine why he wouldn’t have taken you with him.”
That part didn’t bother me so much, I was glad I hadn’t been taken by an ancient vampire who feared change. There was another point that caught my interest though. “If he’s so old he would have been able to get a license to turn me if he wanted to, right?”
“Ellri are exempt from vampire law. They can do as they please.”
“Then… you won’t have to turn me in after all, right? You can let me go?”
Bishop hesitated and I wondered what he wasn’t telling me. “In theory no, but this is all based on speculation. There hasn’t been a precedent set like this before. Without your Sire to claim you, we don’t know for certain it was an Ellri that sired you.”
“But you
r little machine…”
“It’s evidence in your favor, but it’s not enough to establish your line on its own. In fact, it’s more likely you were sired by a direct descendent than an Ellri himself, and he would still be subject to our laws.”
“So we’re right back where we started.”
“Almost. This tells us at least that whoever turned you is very old, very powerful, and not to be dealt with lightly. You know, that explains why I had so much trouble catching you tonight.”
“You said it was easy to catch me!” My eyes widened in surprise. And here I’d thought he had been toying with me!
“Yes, I did say that,” he grinned.
“You lied?” Somehow I hadn’t thought him capable of it, I have no idea why. Bishop shrugged, unconcerned as he turned to put the device back on the kitchen counter and I decided not to make an issue of it. “So what happens now?” I felt like I was constantly asking him that, but how else would I get the answers I needed to survive?
“I have no idea. I’m a vampire, not a psychic.” Ignoring me for the moment, he pulled a wicked looking knife out of his boot and a short pistol from the other, setting them to rest beside their brethren on the counter.
My teeth pressed against the inside of my lips as I fought the urge to scream at him for blowing me off. Like it or not I needed him at the moment, keenly feeling my own lack of experience in all things vampire. “I mean… to me. Will I fall into a coma as soon as the sun rises? Will I burn if I’m not in a coffin? I see I still have a reflection, what about holy water and garlic and silver?” The questions tumbled from my lips without end.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, one thing at a time before you have an aneurism.” His hands came up in a supplicating gesture, that trace of annoyance coming back to his eyes. Bishop looked like he wanted to disappear out the window. I forced myself to stem the flow of questions, but my eyes begged him silently to respond. Pinching the bridge of his nose, he looked like he was starting to get a migraine. Did vampires get migraines? My mouth opened to ask him but I snapped it shut again, thinking better of the question. “I knew I was going to regret this…” he muttered disgustedly.