Through the tiny opaque windows at the top of the washroom ceiling, Ellie could see that the storm had worsened against the night sky. The whiteness illuminating from the pile of snow against the pane of glass was almost brilliant. The precipitation would make rescuing her next to impossible, if anyone had even thought to try to do that.
She imagined her mother and her grandmother would be at home right now, arguing about something silly—like, is it better to use sugar, get fat and die from a massive heart attack, or endure a slow, painful death from chemical substitutes—and it would probably be her grandmother’s boyfriend, the Chief, who would finally put two and two together and say something like “that’s why I like my coffee black. How does Ellie take hers? And by the way, isn’t it kind of late for her to be out?” The Helens would then stare blankly at each other, and eventually come to the conclusion that something was terribly amiss.
Then again, they could also think she had just left the house to escape them—like she had the past few mornings—and not even bother looking for her until she didn’t show up for breakfast.
“What the hell is wrong with them?” she asked herself. “Why isn’t anyone coming to save me?”
She reached around to the side pocket of her jeans, wondering whether her cell phone was still there. Had the vampire frisked her while she lay unconscious on the floor? That was a creepy thought. He could have touched her everywhere and she wouldn’t even have known. She was only slightly comforted to feel a vibration against her leg. Someone was trying to call her, but she had thankfully switched her ringtone off the other night at the movie. She pressed her thigh into the floor to drown out the slight buzzing sound, glancing at the vampire as she did so. If he had heard anything, he wasn’t letting on.
“I’ve got to get a message to my mother," she thought to herself. She put her fingers to her temple and tried to send a telepathic message. She didn’t know if she really believed the Helens the other morning when they said they were witches/not witches, but it right now it sure as hell was better than thinking they weren’t. She did know her mother had an uncanny ability to play hide and seek with her when she was younger. She always found her no matter what size of hole Ellie had crawled into.
“Mom, come find me in this hellhole,” she whispered.
“What’s that?” the vampire asked, suddenly taking an interest in her again.
“Don’t you have to go crawl back under a rock, or the earth or something?” Ellie asked.
“Why? Does that turn you on?”
“Hardly.”
“That’s not very nice, Poppet.”
“Will you quit calling me that?” she protested. “I hate that. My name is...”
“Don’t say it!” he ordered. “I don’t want to know. If you insist on telling me, I’ll kill you right now.” He stomped his foot to the ground, like a three-year old throwing a tantrum.
“Why? Is it easier for you when you don’t know our names? You called Brooke ‘Dorothy’, what did you call Kevin?” Ellie taunted. She had been analyzing the vampire for what seemed like hours now, and she knew that the more she annoyed him, the more he walked around in circles and seemed to forget she was there. “Maybe it’s time you took your nap.”
“Shut up, Poppet. You are really beginning to get on my nerves,” he yelled, starting to pace the floor. His right arm moved across his chest, he held his left arm by the elbow, and he cupped his chin in his left palm while pondering God knows what.
“I have to go to the bathroom,” Ellie interrupted.
“So go to the bathroom,” he said, not looking at her but continuing his steady cantor. “I won’t look, I’m busy thinking.”
“Can’t you chain me up in the girls bathroom?” she yelled loud enough to break his train of thought.
“Use the stall.”
“No.”
“You can make it, the chain is long enough,” he sighed, stopping dead in his tracks. She was looking at him like he was out of his mind. “You are one bitchy broad, do you know that? What difference does it make?”
“If you must know, I’m PMSing. It’s only going to get worse. I need the GIRLS bathroom.”
Gaspar looked at her, horrified. “That can’t be possible. How old are you?”
“I’m fifteen, asshole.”
He crept closer towards her. “You are not,” he replied, shaking his head in disbelief. “Fifteen year old girls are more...mature than you are.”
“Nice. I swear to God—or whatever pagan idol that works for you—that I will be sweet sixteen in a matter of months. Why do you find that so shocking?” she asked, as she watched his gaze go from her eyes to her chest and stay there. Great. Another boob guy. She was stuck in a hellhole with a teenaged blood sucking murder/tit gawker, and there wasn’t anything she could do about it.
“Because it’s a problem. A huge problem,” he said, waiving his arms over his head in an overly dramatic fashion. “It’s like a lactose intolerant thing. It means I can’t use you for food.”
“That’s tragic,” Ellie said cynically. “And hello, I’d appreciate it if you would look me in the face when you talked to me.” She self-consciously tugged at the sweater she had borrowed to make it cling less to her body.
Gaspar sighed and slowly sat down beside her. This was not part of his plan. Now what was he going to do with her? He only killed for food, he wasn’t a murderer-murderer, despite what they all thought. But the feeding book had clearly stated that until his second set of canine teeth came through, signaling his maturation as a vampire, he would be unable to handle the blood of an adult. The adult blood would be too hard for him to digest. It would tire him, making it almost impossible for him to hunt at all, and he would eventually starve himself into oblivion. Not death, oblivion. That would be tragic. One didn’t come back from oblivion.
“But you look so young,” he said, wondering to himself why the book had not said anything about drinking teenaged blood. Child. Adult. It had been specific. Nothing about pubescent pixies of the Goth kind. Or maybe it had. Even as a child he had always been one to skip over pages and read the ending first. Would it be worth the risk to try to feed on her? Would the hormone crazy blood of a girl his own age be more than he could handle? He found himself salivating at the thought.
“Looks can be deceiving,” Ellie retorted. “You should know. You saw me the other night. You trapped me in the van. You were foaming at the mouth, looking like a wolf from a black velvet “howl at the moon” poster, but I know it was you.”
“How?” he asked. Perhaps this girl knew more than he initially thought. Perhaps she already knew and accepted the fact that he was different. SHE had told him that one day he would meet a girl that would truly understand. Could this be the girl?
“Your eyes. One blue, one brown. Same as the damn dog,” Ellie said. “A little too much of a co-incidence, don’tcha think?”
“Sorry,” he shrugged. That hadn’t been the answer he was hoping for. Maybe it wasn’t going to be love at first capture. He chuckled to himself. “I guess I wasn’t paying all that much attention to your face then either.”
“You’re giving the term ‘one sick puppy’ a whole new meaning, do you know that?” Ellie pointed out.
“Was that some sort of compliment?” he asked.
“Whatever works for you,” Ellie answered.
“I wasn’t being a pervert,” he protested. “I did notice you, but I was keeping an eye on the rake your grandmother was threatening to lobotomize me with. We wolves are funny that way.”
“Was that some kind of an apology?” she asked.
“Whatever works for you,” he mocked.
“I take it you’re some sort of shape-shifter?” she bantered. “I’m sorry, were you aiming for wolf? Because you got mutt.”
“I can transform, yes,” he said indignantly. Poor little Poppett. She would never understand what it was like to be able to take on another life form. She’d never know what it was like to soar through the air like an ea
gle, with eyesight that could spy your prey from above the clouds. She’d never know what it was like to be a canine, and follow the scent of your meal in fresh made tracks. Unless of course, she became like him.
“Why don’t you just turn yourself back into a human?” she asked innocently.
“It doesn’t work that way,” he answered with a note of regret in his voice.
“I’m not trying to be a bitch or anything,” she said softly, offering him some sympathy. “I was just thinking that this whole vampire thing must be a lot to deal with.”
“Like your fresh scrubbed cherubic face isn’t a bit of an issue for you?” he asked sarcastically.
Ellie was taken aback.
“I get issues, girlie. I have a few of them myself.”
He took a deep breath, his nostrils flaring as he unconsciously let out a snort. He wanted to turn around and slap her silly, like she was an annoying little sister. But she wasn’t his sister, she was someone his own age as it turned out. And she was really quite—pretty. Those green eyes that alternately flashed with anger and clouded with tears. He could feel himself getting an erection just thinking about her. It was the first one he had since his transformation and it felt pretty darn good, he had to admit. Aside from the obvious sexual arousal, it made him feel...warm...and perhaps even borderline fuzzy.
“Hit me with your best shot,” she stammered, fighting back emotions that she knew would end in tears.
“You’re very intuitive,” he sighed, taking a strand of her hair into his fingers. “I do feel like knocking you senseless again, but that’s starting to get old. You look different now, that’s all I meant. You were less put together both then and when I saw you at the bridge. You looked girlier.” He paused. “But today’s look. I get that as well. The dark eye shadow and the heavy mascara. Make-up hides the imperfections. You use it to transform yourself into an enchanting little vixen.” He put the strand of hair between his lips and tossed it lightly with his tongue before releasing it. “Maybe sometime you can give me a lesson or two.”
“Okay,” Ellie thought, not sure which was more uncomfortable, the hair thing, or him secretly wanting to be a goth-vamp in disguise. That was pointless, really. Either you were the real thing or you weren’t. It made her wonder—was his demonic look really just some sort of male teenaged fetish?
“That would be nice,” he said softly, bowing his head before her. “Sometimes I feel all alone. But now I have you.”
She hadn’t noticed it before, when he was standing up, but as he bent his face forward she saw that he had white spots on a patch of hair towards the back of his head. At the roots.
“Since we’re besties, sharing make-up secrets and all—do you dye your hair?” she asked.
“I don’t have heterochromia,” he said quietly, refusing to look at her. “You’re wrong about that.”
“Uh, what do you mean?” she asked, not knowing whether she really wanted to hear the answer. Anything either hetero or non-hetero in this conversation was making her even more nervous.
“Give me a break, Poppet.”
Her curiosity got the better of her and she continued to stare at his hair. There was more than a slight variance in the color tone closer to his head. She smiled to herself, knowing she was right. He may fancy himself as a creature of the night, but really he was someone who needed another trip to the salon.
“I know you think I’m pale because I’m a vampire, but that’s not really why I look this way. I’ve always been pale. When I was mortal I had stage two Waardenburg syndrome.”
“And that would be...?”
“A rare condition, characterized by one blue eye and one...”
“Brown,” Ellie said softly, becoming aware that at least a part of his condition was still human.
“Among other traits.”
“You know,” Ellie offered, feeling a slight guilt pang for even having brought the subject up at all. “It’s not all that rare. I remember I had a nanny once whose son had eyes like yours. We used to play together. He must have had Worden...”
“Waardenburg,” he corrected.
“Right. He must have had it too. But he had other problems. He was deaf, and he wore leg braces to help himself walk.” She laughed. “I know that’s not funny, but he’d kick me with them every once and a while and it hurt like hell.”
“You must have been mean to him,” he snapped.
“It was just kid stuff. I took one of his dump trucks once and smashed his sandcastle. He kicked me, then he stomped his heavy shoes on the ground and waived his arms in the air like a crazy kid until I gave it back to him. Much like—you did—a few moments ago.”
The teenagers turned and stared at each other. For two people so different it was becoming abundantly clear that there was an uncanny connection between them.
“Gaspar?” Ellie whispered, as she wondered whether this prick who was holding her captive was once the little boy she played with in a sandbox.
He looked at her, trying to place the tiny face tucked deep in his memory upon the body in front of him. She knew his name. How could that be?
He looked into her eyes again. They were like HERS, yes—but that wasn’t why they were familiar.
He took her hand in his and held it for a moment. Just to touch someone again was in indescribable thrill to him. When his soul—perhaps not the right word given his circumstance—when his being connected her with his past, the feeling within him was almost orgasmic.
He began to use her fingers to sign a name, as he had been taught as a deaf child. He struggled with the first letter ‘E’, but the sequence came back to him quickly and he easily added ‘L-L.’
She put her hand over his. It was cold to her touch, but not as cold as she would have thought a vampire’s skin would be. It was seasonably cool. A little uncomfortable maybe, but nothing a pair of fingerless gloves couldn’t help with. She reached for his fingers and finished the word for him, signing “I.E.” with her hand.
“I remember,” she said softly.
“Ellie. The pretty girl with the pretty mother,” he sighed. “This is an unexpected crossroad in our lives.”
“I can’t believe it,” she said, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. “What happened to you? Are you really a vampire?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“But look at you—you are talking. You can obviously hear. And you can run faster than anyone I know. Is it...” she hesitated, “…better?”
“Sometimes,” he answered. He sniffed her. The scent she was emitting aroused him but not like the blood of the children had. It aroused him in a way he found both sensual and dangerous. “You’re so confusing, Ellie. You’re driving me wild.”
“Is that a bad thing?” she asked. She could see a look of lust in his eyes. She knew the look. Tom had looked at her that same way the night he was in Helena’s kitchen. She had found it exciting then, until things went awry. This time the awry had come first.
“I don’t know whether to eat you or not,” he said.
“You’re still considering it?” she gasped. “Even though we were friends when we were younger?”
“Yes,” he answered honestly. He felt he owed her that much. She had been one of the few children who would play with him. The others had found him too unusual. Or their parents had. Same difference. “I don’t know if we were friends. Playmates maybe. We were sometimes horrible to each other.”
“We were toddlers. That’s how we expressed ourselves. There wasn’t a whole lot of premeditation involved.”
“Are you a virgin, Ellie?” he asked.
“Whoa. How did you segue to that?” Ellie answered. “Are you inferring a different meaning to the verb ‘eat’? Because I am definitely not in the mood right now, thanks. And that has nothing to do with whether I’m a virgin or not. Who are you? My mother?”
He smiled and ran his fingers through her hair again. “See, that’s what I mean. How old are you Ellie? One minute yo
u’re risking your life to get a stuffed animal out of a van and the next you’re talking like a dick magnet. You’ve crossed the line from coy to cock teaser, and I don’t know if it’s intentional. Do you?”
“Go write about it on the wall over there, since you know how to spell my name. And leave Beastie Boy out of it.”
“You haven’t answered my question.”
“You never answered mine.”
Gaspar picked at the flaking paint on the wall. He hadn’t allowed himself to spend much time thinking about whether his life had been better as a human. It hadn’t been normal in any sense of the word, so it was rather hard to judge. “It’s better than being dead,” he shrugged.
“Being a vampire?” Ellie said softly.
“Yes,” he nodded. “You were right. I can shape-shift whenever I want to. It makes it easier to feed. People get anxious when they see a wild animal feeding on prey, but they usually keep their distance. It’s better that way. I’ve learned that now. That’s why I do it.”
“So, how old does all this make you? Not that you look ancient or anything, but with vampires, you never know, right? Like, when I thought you were three, you weren’t really three hundred or anything?”
A slow grin came across Gaspar’s face. “I’m one vampire year of age. I was fifteen human years, just like you, when it happened.”
“So this just happened, this change in you?”
“It was a dark and stormy night.”
“If you don’t want to tell me, just say so. You don’t have to be a smart-ass about it. I’m just curious.”
“Don’t believe all that ‘knowledge is power’ crap” Gaspar said. “The less you know about me, the better. Ignorance is bliss, as they say.”
“Who? Who says that? They’re wrong. I don’t know anything about my dad, but that doesn’t make the pain any less. The more I try to forget him, the more I want to know about him. It’s a whole new definition of reverse osmosis.”
Gaspar took an interest. “You don’t know who your dad is?”
“No. He was gone by the time I was born and my mother refuses to talk about him.”
“Interesting. My dad was around when I was born, but my mother tired of him and married a French Count named Henri BonVillaine. That’s where my surname comes from—some rich guy my mother married for a year. It’s not a bad name, I guess. Gaspar BonVillaine. Sometimes I have this nightmare where I learn my real name is Gaspar Gomez. Talk about a let down. I wake up in a cold sweat. Maybe that’s why I never ask. Who my real father is, I mean.”
“Try Ellie Bochelli...”
“What?”
“Never mind. What happened after that? After your mother left the Count?”
“She eventually tired of him as well and we moved here, to Troy. Somewhere in all that, we met you and your mother. Now history is repeating itself. I guess we were always meant to cross paths again.”
“Cross paths? You talk like you’re from the eighteenth century. How many dog years is one vampire year?” she laughed. “Just curious.” She could see it hit a nerve in him.
“See, there’s that mean streak in you again. You forget I couldn’t hear properly as a child. Speech, just like hearing, is relatively new to me. I’ve been reading some historical romances just to get the hang of it.”
Ellie laughed harder. “Now I know two people who actually read them.”
“Well, you read what is around. Bookstores don’t keep my hours.”
“I’m just kidding. Don’t you need a light to read? Doesn’t that bother your kind? Nothing personal—a friend of mine said that to me the other night.”
“Audio books,” Gaspar answered.
“Gotcha,” Ellie nodded.
“Now I’m kidding,” Gaspar laughed. “Don’t believe everything you’ve read about us. I can handle light. Just not for long. It burns me, much like a sunburn does you, but it burns me beneath the skin. I try to stay out of it. Sunscreen’s not much help.”
“Even the pink lights?”
Gaspar looked at her oddly.
“Never mind. You had to be there.”
“Would you like me to bring you a pillow and a blanket?”
Ellie weighed his statement. Why would he bring her that if he was going to kill her? On the other hand, if he was offering to bring her bedding, it meant he wasn’t going to let her go anytime soon. He was getting comfortable. Or horny. Neither of which was appealing to her. She contemplated her chances of both life and escape.
She could feel tears forming in her eyes again, and blinked them back. This was no time to be a cry-baby. She had to keep her wits about her as much as any fifteen year-old could when faced with this situation. If he didn’t like mature, mature she would be.
“What are you wondering, Ellie?” he asked, as if reading her mind. “Are you wondering whether it’s better for me to kill you now or later?”
“I was, yes.”
“And what did you decide?”
“I was thinking later would be good.”
“Me too.”
“So, you’re going to let me go?” Ellie asked hopefully. “We can still be friends. Maybe even go to a movie sometime.”
“Go?” he laughed. “What ever gave you that stupid idea? I’m still going to kill you. Someday. We’re just going to take a little detour. I’m going to take you to hell and back, and then it’s off to grandmother’s house we go.”
He pulled a switchblade from his pocket.
“What are you doing?” she asked, terrified to hear the answer.
“You’re too perfect, Ellie.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“They’d never believe it. The rest of them. They’d never believe that girl like you would want a boy like me.”
“Then they’d be right.”
He grabbed her arm and pushed up her sleeve. The edge of the knife was cold as he very lightly drew the blade across her wrist. No blood flowed, but it scared the shit out of her, he could tell.
“There’s this thing that happens,” he began to explain, “when one of us wants one of you. Forever. We make a nice little slice in an artery, like this vein hidden so delicately under your skin. Then we suck the consciousness from you, almost to the bitter end. But just before you take your last breath, we give you back one.”
He saw the the terror in her eyes.
“Which means?” she asked, her voice barely audible.
“Which means I bring you back to life. And then you are my slave.”
He took the edge of the knife and gave her skin a poke. Droplets of ruby red blood rose to the surface. He raised her arm to his lips, his tongue darting to the blood in a slow, deliberate lick.
She felt a warm uneasiness run through her. The initial unpleasantness was replaced by something she could only describe as anesthetic-like. She felt euphoric. Her senses were going into hyperdrive. She could see the miniscule pores on his skin. She could smell his perspiration. She could hear his heartbeat. She found none of it unpleasant.
“Does that give you some idea, Ellie?” he asked. “Of how magical it could all be?”