“Why?”
“Because I need to think.”
Lucien looked surprised, but he said, “Fine.”
He walked with her down to the water, and Makeda slipped off the loose slippers she was wearing. She’d worn nothing more than scrubs for the past week. Nothing else felt comfortable against her skin.
Makeda walked into the water up to her knees and sank down, taking Lucien with her. She didn’t care if he got wet; she didn’t care about anything but getting the water on her skin.
“Give yourself a minute,” Lucien said. “You should have been brought to the sea before this. I am sorry, Makeda.”
“I’ve been sitting in the tub a lot,” she said. “It helps me think. But this…”
It was heaven. The cold saltwater soothed her skin and filled her senses. Instead of sorting through a myriad of jumbled sensory information, Makeda could finally think.
Lucien said, “Most water vampires show an affinity toward either saltwater or fresh. You obviously take after Baojia.”
Makeda didn’t want to think about Philip or the other choice still sitting in front of her. Not now, not when the water gave her the first real peace she’d felt since she’d woken in this nightmare. She didn’t know how much time passed, but the tide had risen considerably when she felt ready to speak again.
“I don’t want to kill Philip,” she said. “Or I do… but I don’t want to give in to the urge, if that makes sense. I don’t want to lose control.”
Lucien was looking at her, and she couldn’t interpret his expression.
“Is that abnormal?” she asked. “Should I want to kill him? Will this affect my predatory instincts adversely?”
“Your predatory instincts will never be a problem,” he said. “We are predators to the core. I’m simply amazed you’re thinking this clearly.”
“When I become agitated, I list the bones in the human body. If I’m still agitated when I finish, I start on the muscular system.” She ducked her head under a wave, spitting out the overwhelming taste of salt and seaweed. “It helps.”
“I’ll remember that.”
“What will you do with Philip if I don’t kill him?”
“He has to die. Not only is he spying in Katya’s territory, he tried to kill a human under her aegis. I will kill him. Or Baojia will.” His eyes turned calculating. “Depending on which of our aegis you decide to claim.”
She stared at him. “You’re lying.”
“Maybe.”
“You are.” She glanced over her shoulder at the mouth of the cave. “He’s buried in there?”
“Up to his neck in sand.”
“Thank you. I think.”
“I was happy to do it.”
“I know. You don’t like that I’m a vampire.” She didn’t think about the words until they’d already left her mouth, but she felt his hand tighten on her arm. “If Philip is buried, then I don’t have to choose either of you.” Makeda stood and Lucien followed. “Philip can stay where he is and the ocean will take care of him for me.”
“Drowning is a cruel death.”
Makeda thought about the friendly man who’d helped her move boxes and washed Mrs. Gunnerson’s car. The man who’d pretended to be her friend, all the while spying on her. The man who had tampered with his own car in an attempt to kill her.
“I know it’s cruel.” She walked back toward the cliffs, Lucien still holding her arm.
Makeda went back to her room, and Lucien left to speak to Baojia. She wondered how long it would take for Philip to die and briefly considered asking Ruben to take her to the edge of the cliffs so she could see the tide enter the cave.
She didn’t. Allowing cruelty was one thing. Enjoying it would make her a monster.
❖
Three days passed in darkness. She was underground during the day, hidden in a room with no windows and only one door. She slept more deeply than she ever had in her life. At night there was only a moonless sky when Baojia took her to the sea. They walked down every night and she calmed in his presence, surrounded by the water that spoke to her soul.
Baojia didn’t waste time chatting. She knew he was waiting for her to decide between his aegis and Lucien’s. Every night, she felt more comfortable in this new skin that felt everything. Every night, she thought about choosing Baojia and bidding Lucien good-bye.
She didn’t do it.
Makeda had always been a creature of her mind, keeping her body in good condition because she knew her brain operated at peak capacity when she was healthy. But her physical self was a supporting mechanism for her mind.
In this new skin, she felt trapped by it.
The sensory information she absorbed was nearly overwhelming. The only saving grace was the new speed and agility of her mind. Utilizing familiar methods for analysis, the strict discipline taught by her family, and her new cognitive agility, Makeda was able to quickly rein in her most base hungers, which were concentrated in two areas.
Blood and sex.
The blood she had to have, but Makeda refused to do anything about her suddenly raging sexual drive. She drank four quarts of human blood each night. Two upon waking and two before the day caused her to black out. And it was blacking out. Nothing about vampire sleep reminded her of human sleep. She was awake. Then she was asleep. She did not dream and wondered if the lack of sleep cycles would adversely affect brain function at some point. She posed the question to Baojia.
“Meditation,” he said, cutting through the water with a neat stroke she emulated. “Or some form of it. Every vampire I know practices it in some way whether they call it that or not. Some actively meditate. Others daydream. When you live as long as we do, nights become monotonous. We become artists, craftsmen, avid readers. I know one earth vampire who climbs the same mountain every night before dawn comes. He’s been climbing the same stretch for forty years now. It’s not a challenge; it’s become his meditation.
“What do you do?”
“I practice tai chi and I recommend it for all new vampires. It focuses the mind and body.”
“Can you teach me?”
“Yes.”
He didn’t ask the question she knew he wanted to ask: Had she decided under whose aegis she would live?
“I haven’t decided yet.”
Part of her longed to stay with Baojia. The friendship they’d shared had been superseded by more familiar feelings. She felt a kinship with the vampire like that she felt near her father. It was an immediate trust and comfort she could not explain but chose to cherish nonetheless. Though she hadn’t ever wanted to be a vampire, she’d come to realize Baojia had the type of honor her own father did. Authority shown in service to those he was responsible for. She knew that kind of power. She respected it.
But Lucien…
The sensual hunger hit her as soon as her mind turned to Lucien. Though physically impossible, she woke some nights feeling as if his skin was still under her mouth. The taste of his blood lived on her tongue. Though she knew it only to be a very strong sensory memory, something in her felt as if he’d entered her bloodstream and lived under her skin.
“Focus,” Baojia said, sensing her erratic emotions begin to scatter. “I’m not going to rush you.”
“Lucien and Katya both want me to decide.”
“Let me worry about them,” he said. He reached for an outcropping of rock that jutted from the sea. The rock below the waterline was encrusted with mussels, but the top was smooth. He held out a hand and Makeda took it. “I can hold them off for a while longer.”
“Thank you,” she said, sitting next to him and letting the spray fill her lungs. “But I need to decide for myself too.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
She didn’t want to talk to Baojia about her reservations toward Lucien because most of them involved sex, her confusing feelings about their relationship before her change, and her illogical hunger for him. But who else was she going to consult with? Her contact with her sist
ers was limited—she didn’t know what she’d say to them anyway—and Natalie was human too.
Why weren’t there any female vampires at the compound? The thought brought an irrational spike of anger.
“Why aren’t there any vampire women here?” she asked. “Do you and Lucien have a problem working with women?”
Baojia raised an eyebrow but only said, “No. My top lieutenant in San Francisco is a woman, and in case you didn’t realize it, so is my boss.”
Makeda forced herself to relax. She was being unreasonable, reacting before she thought. A majority of the human staff at the lab were female. It was likely the lack of immortal women was purely chance.
“But…” Baojia looked thoughtful. “Lucien may. I don’t know. He’s a lot older than me.”
“You think the son of the most powerful vampire in the world—who is a woman—has a problem working with women?”
“Not working with them,” Baojia said. “But if I’m reading you correctly when he’s around, you’re attracted to him, and I don’t believe he takes vampire lovers as a rule. Is that what’s bothering you about accepting his offer of protection? Because we both know that rationally he’s the better choice.”
Well, it looked like she’d be confiding in Baojia after all. “I’m very… aware of him. I don’t like it.”
“It could be purely chance,” Baojia said. “He is a male of no blood relation who is in close physical proximity, and your body is still coming into balance. Immediately after my turning, my sex drive was very high. I took a number of lovers, all of them immortal.” His voice softened a little. “It was not emotional in the sense of attachment, but they understood the heightened senses. One of them is still a very good friend. It could be the same with Lucien.”
It was likely Baojia was right and this vicious pull she felt toward Lucien was simply the product of her physical transformation and her mind’s ongoing attempts to reorganize itself.
“However,” he continued, “I do think you have to acknowledge that before your turning, you and Lucien were drawn to each other. You were antagonists, but that is still an emotional relationship. I don’t think you should discount that.”
He was right. Hate was not the opposite of love. That was indifference. And she and Lucien had never been indifferent toward each other.
“And you don’t seem to have this problem with any of the other staff. Ruben guards you most nights when I’m not with you, and as far as I know—”
“Oh my gosh, Baojia, Ruben is like… my brother or something.”
“Well, that’s another thing you shouldn’t discount.”
“I won’t discount anything.” Makeda watched as the waves crept up the rock, fascinated by the small eddies and currents created by the grooves and dips worn by time and erosion. A small pebble spun around a pocket worn into the rock, smoothing it on a microscopic level as she watched. Given enough time and water, that small pebble could wear a hole in the massive boulder where she sat. That tiny pebble would be joined by others. A crab could take up residence. Anemones could find shelter.
“Amazing, isn’t it?” Baojia said. “The places where earth and water meet can often be the most violent.” He lifted a tiny starfish from a crevice in the rock. “But the most delicate things can thrive within that violence. Some can only thrive there.”
Water meeting rock. Could she and Lucien’s relationship be a simple reflection of that dichotomy? Him, the immovable object, and her, the force of change? Or was he the volcano and she the cooling sea? There were no easy answers to what their relationship was or what it might become should she choose his aegis. But she knew choosing his protection was the far wiser choice. For herself and her family.
“I know what I need to do,” she said quietly. The weight of reason had never felt so heavy before. “Will you speak to him?”
Baojia reached over and closed his hand over hers. “I will always be here. No matter what.”
“You’re a good friend,” Makeda said. “And a good sire.”
“He’ll take you away.”
“I know. It’s probably for the best right now.” Not being able to see her family and friends was agonizing.
“I wish I could come with you, but I can’t.”
She patted his hand and finally felt a hint of mischief as the burden of decision lifted from her.
“I know. Thanks anyway… Dad.”
“Okay, now you’re just being weird.”
❖
Makeda woke to a low light and the quiet drone of the cargo plane. Lucien hadn’t told her where they were going, but hopefully it was someplace with far fewer humans and far less temptation.
Lucien was sitting in a corner of the plane, reading a stack of papers and taking notes.
“What are you reading?” she asked.
She had no need to clear her throat. Biological processes appeared to stop during vampire sleep, which meant mucous production and its resulting hoarseness did as well. She wondered why Lucien and Baojia were so insistent she drink half her ration of blood before she went to sleep. Perhaps it had something to do with cell repair.
“I had my assistant search your laptop and print any pages from your browsing history that were within our research parameters,” he said, not looking up from his work. He didn’t stop writing either. “I know your memory is not entirely recovered, but I’m hoping—”
“You snooped through my computer?”
“No, Tara did.” He glanced up, then back to his notes. “I doubt she had any particular curiosity about your browsing habits. I simply needed to know where your thoughts were taking you the day before your accident.”
She bit down her retort. It was a gross invasion of privacy, but she trusted Lucien’s assistant not to snoop. Tara was a bright young thing, but she was particularly focused. If you set her on a task, she rarely deviated.
“Does she still have my computer?” Makeda didn’t know if she’d taken any notes on her laptop, but if she had, the files would be password protected.
“No.”
“Have her send it to… wherever we’re going.”
“You won’t be able to use it in Bahir Dar.”
Everything in her stopped. “We’re going to Ethiopia?”
He looked up, frowning. “Is that really surprising? You’re under my aegis now. You need to meet Saba.”
Yes, but…
“Ethiopia is landlocked.” And she was a water vampire. She tried not to panic.
Immediate understanding colored his features. “That is true. However, it does have numerous lakes. Lake Tana has a number of islands, many of which are inhabited. Two of which are inhabited only by my mother’s people.”
“And that’s where we’re going?”
“Yes. One of the islands is mine, and I keep a lab there. It’s not luxurious, but it’s completely self-sustained. Solar power and an independent water system. We’ll be able to work without humans.”
Makeda had nothing to say. She’d never worked alone, even when she worked solo on projects. “How will we—”
“Why don’t you save your questions until we get there?” he asked. “You may find you don’t have as many as you think.”
Message received. Shut up and only ask questions if you absolutely have to.
Lovely.
She lay back down and concentrated on using her amnis to dampen her senses. She muffled her hearing and taste. She observed the feeling of the scrubs she was still wearing, concentrating on what the seams felt like pressing against her skin. It didn’t hurt; she was simply more cognizant of the details. Taking that knowledge, she focused her mind on softening her awareness of the fibers pressing into her skin.
“What are you thinking about right now?”
She blinked her eyes and noticed that Lucien was watching her.
“The seams on my clothing. I think they may have used a synthetic thread to sew in the labels.”
He frowned. “There will be other clothing on the island
for you. It will be traditional.”
Traditional clothing was likely to be the loose dresses her mother still wore around the house or for formal family events. Loose dresses would probably be as comfortable or more comfortable than scrubs.
“Traditional clothing will be fine,” Makeda said. “As long as the fibers are natural. My skin seems to sense synthetics more acutely than natural fibers.”
“I’ll make a note to tell them.”
“No humans?” she asked.
“No, I’ve never wanted humans too close to the lab. There is a sister island nearby where my brother lives. It has more communication and a satellite dish. My mother’s humans have always lived there and gone back and forth between the two, but I’ve messaged ahead. They know not to come to the island until I tell them otherwise.”
“Is there refrigeration?”
“If you’re thinking about blood, don’t worry about having enough. My brother’s people will feed us. Once the first six weeks have passed, we’ll begin to supplement human blood with cattle. It’s mostly what I drink when I’m there.”
“The Mursi people in the Omo Valley traditionally drink cattle blood and milk,” Makeda mused. “They bleed a cow once a month, but they rarely kill one.”
“They probably descended from my mother’s people at some point.”
“Do you think it’s where vampirism came from?” she asked. “Human blood drinking?”
“I don’t know, though I’ve often wondered the same thing. I’m fairly sure Saba’s human tribe originated in the lower Omo Valley or near it because of her scarification. It’s similar to some the tribes still practice. Of course, she’s thousands of years older than they are. I could be wrong, but I don’t think so.”
Makeda fell silent and thought about the years stretching before her.
Endless years. She would never grow old. She would never lose her mental or physical strength. She would never develop disease. She’d never even catch a cold.
And she’d never see the sun.
She’d never have a child of her own.
She would watch everyone she’d loved in life die. Her parents she expected one day, but her sisters?