Call of the Vampire (17 page)

It was Jessie. My heart began beating so hard in my chest it was painful.

“What do you care?” Viktor asked in response. “She’s not your companion. She’s just a little plaything you’ve used to amuse yourself.”

“Aurora is mine!” Jessie thundered. “No one touches her but me!”

I heard the blows and the scuffling of a fight. A body was thrown up against the bars of the storm drain. He turned his head, and I saw it was Jessie. “Aurora, get out of here,” he told me. “Go lock yourself in one of the cells if you can.” He got to his feet, disappearing from my view again.

“You already shamed your family over one human,” Viktor said. “Why risk your life for another?”

“What are you talking about?” Jessie asked, his breath heavy with exertion.

“Don’t think I haven’t heard the rumors,” Viktor laughed. “Stories like that never go away. Not even after a hundred years.”

Jessie was flung against the bars again. I scooted closer to the grate. When he glanced in at me, I held up the stake in my hand and vigorously nodded at him. I saw him draw breath to yell at me for still being there, but then he changed his mind. Struggling to his feet, he said to Viktor, “I judge a being on their actions, not on whether they have fangs.”

I positioned myself right up against the grate. I had my head bent low, trying to see the two vampires. When they paused to goad each other, they were visible to me, but then one would lunge for the other or go to strike a blow, and they would appear to be only blurry shadows. My eyes couldn’t follow them; they moved so fast.

“You’re pathetic,” Viktor informed him. “You treat our food better than you do a brother vampire.”

“You used to be human once.”

Viktor laughed an ugly, demonic laugh. “That was so long ago. Who can even remember.”

They started grappling again. It was hard to tell who was who. The moon wasn’t helping because it kept slipping behind the clouds, and then I could barely see anything but dark silhouettes. It was amazing how strong they both were, knocking each other several feet with their mighty blows. It was no wonder that my head hurt so bad from Viktor striking me.

One of the dark figures managed to hoist the other man over his head. “Now, Aurora!” I heard Jessie shout. I shoved the piece of wood through the bars of the grate just as Jessie threw Viktor at the opening of the drainage ditch.

My impulse was to jerk back and cringe as the body of Viktor came at me, but I forced myself to stay where I was with the piece of wood in my hands, braced against the iron bars.

Jessie’s aim was true, and my makeshift stake was driven deep into Viktor’s torso. I knew the vampire was screaming in pain, but I could barely hear him over the sounds of my own shrieks of terror.

I was somehow under the impression that a staked vampire would pop like a blood-filled water balloon. That’s how it always happened in the movies. But there was very little blood besides the red stream that poured out of the corner of Viktor’s mouth as he gasped and clawed at his chest. He twisted his head to look back at me through the grate. It seemed like he was trying to say something. Maybe he wanted to hurl some horrible last curse at me or beg for forgiveness with his final breath; I couldn’t tell. His skin began to shrivel on his skull. His eyeballs dried in their sockets, and his flesh fell off like burned paper. It was horrible, but he was still alive, still moving, his jaws opening and closing. He extended his arms, reaching for me through the bars. I was paralyzed with horror, unable to move, unable to stop screaming, but I desperately, desperately did not want his skeletal hands to touch me.

Jessie came up beside Viktor and thrust him away with his boot. The body fell apart, the joints all unhinged, and then quickly disintegrated to nothing but ashes.

“Aurora,” Jessie said, crouching down next to me. “Aurora!” he shouted to snap me out of my hysteria.

I wasn’t screaming anymore, I knew that, but I didn’t know when I’d stopped. I dropped the stake, held absolutely still for what seemed like an eternity, and then started trembling all over. I was crying, bawling my head off. When Jessie went to unfasten the latch on the grate, I began whimpering, “No, no...”

It wasn’t that I was afraid of Jessie. That was not the complete truth. He was terrifying, but I knew he wouldn’t hurt me. I just didn’t trust that Viktor was truly dead. I had this wild terror that he would somehow reanimate himself and come after me again.

Jessie got the grate open. “Are you all right?” he asked in a gentle voice.

“Yes,” I said, my voice trembling. “I think so. Maybe a concussion. I don’t know.”

“You know I would never hurt you, right?” he said, mistaking my continued fear for terror of him.

“I know,” I managed to say with my jaw trembling. “But you’re sure he can’t come back?” I peered out of the drainage ditch, half expecting the vampire to dive at me from out of the sky. “He’s really dead?”

“Yes.” Jessie extended a hand toward me to help me out of the little tunnel.

“But he came back before. You killed him before, and he still came back.”

“No.” Jessie shook his head, his full lips pulled into a tight frown. “We fought before, and I ejected him off Vanderlind land, but I didn’t kill him. I should have, but I didn’t.”

I tentatively reached a hand out and allowed Jessie to help me to my feet. As soon as I was upright, my legs turned to spaghetti, and I fell into his arms, crying. Jessie just held me, stroking my hair, softly whispering, “Aurora. Oh, my darling. I am so sorry.”

I don’t know how long I cried, but eventually my tears dried, and I was able to stand on my own two feet. “Thank you,” I mumbled. “I feel better now.” I was embarrassed by how completely I’d lost it, but Viktor was so frightening and his death was so horrible that it had overwhelmed me.

Jessie loosened his grip slightly but didn’t release me. “Please don’t thank me,” he insisted in a hoarse whisper. “It’s my fault he came after you.”

I was ashamed of myself and unable to meet his eye, but his words were so choked with emotion that I snuck a peek up at him. There was a splash of tears across his prominent cheekbones. I reached up and blotted one with the pad of my thumb, then stuck it in my mouth to see if vampire tears still tasted like salt water. I took comfort in the fact that they did. My gesture somehow upset him, and he closed his eyes so very tightly, hiding his face into my hair. “I couldn’t stand it,” he whispered. “I couldn’t stand it if I lost you again.”

I didn’t pull away, but he must have felt my body stiffen. “I’m sorry,” he said again. “I know you’re not Colette.” He leaned back to look at my face. “You do look remarkably like her, but I know she’s not you. I just,” he turned his eyes away. “I just care about you a lot and couldn’t stand the thought of something happening to you.”

His words made my heart sing. I felt like I’d plunged into a pool of champagne. But I was quickly brought down to earth with the memory that he’d stopped seeing me without explanation. “If you care about me, then why did you disappear without even telling me why?”

“I...” Jessie was surprised by my question. His strong arms were still wrapped around me, and he squeezed me a little closer. “I heard that Viktor was looking for revenge, and I didn’t want to put you at risk. I didn’t want to alarm you, but I sent Viggo to keep you safe. Didn’t he tell you?”

“No. He just said something like, ‘Mr. Wanderlind told me to vatch you so I vatch you.’ I thought you’d sent him to…” I felt like an idiot to admit it, but forced myself to say, “I thought you sent him to keep me from stalking you or something.”

“What?” Jessie was incredulous. It took him a moment to process what I’d just said. Then he smiled, his eyes twinkling. “Viggo’s never been good at communicating. I should have told you more in my note, but...” and I swear he started to blush. “I wasn’t sure how you felt about me.”

I couldn’t explain my feelings. I couldn’t summon words that made sense. I just knew that there was a part of me that loved Jessie Vanderlind unconditionally. It must have shown in my eyes because his lips found mine and we were kissing. His lips were cool but firm. The pleasure they gave me took my breath away. I was in ecstasy. My whole body quivered with passion.

“Oh, Lettie,” he whispered into my mouth.

We both froze, still in each other’s arms but decades apart. He released me, and I took a step backwards, even though my legs still trembled beneath me. “Aurora,” I told him.

Remorse was etched across his perfect face. “I hate myself for saying that. I know you’re not her. I really do. I’m just so used to being in love with her that it’s hard to let go. Even with how I feel about you.”

“It’s okay,” I told him, and on some level it was true. It was never good to have the boy you were in love with say another girl’s name, but if my dreams meant anything, I was somehow connected to Colette Gibson. “There’s a lot I need to tell you about Aunt Colette and me.”

“I’m ready to talk about it whenever you are,” Jessie said. “But...”

“What?”

“There are a few things I should do for Viktor now that he’s gone. Even though he wanted to kill you, I still need to gather his bones or whatever I can find and make sure he has a proper final sleep.”

“Did he have any family?” I gulped. “I mean, you know, a vampire family?” I seriously did not want a whole line of Viktor’s relatives coming after me for my stubbornness about not wanting to become a vampire snack.

“He may have some descendents still around, but he wasn’t from one of our families or anything, if that’s what you mean.” Jessie ran his hand through his hair a few times. “Still, the Bishops won’t be happy. There’s nothing I can do about that. But no, Viktor was always a bit of a loose cannon. He didn’t have too many friends.”

It was then that I realized that I was a horrible friend. Blossom was probably hogtied somewhere, and I hadn’t even thought of her since I first started fleeing Viktor. I grabbed Jessie by the arm. “We have to find Blossom. Viktor kidnapped her to force me to meet him here. I have no idea where she is.”

Jessie patted my hand to reassure me. He lifted his head and sniffed the air. “I don’t smell her. There is a dead body nearby, but I don’t think it’s her.”

“What?” I practically shouted. “A dead... You don’t think it’s her?”

Following his nose, Jessie led me back to the pier. “Stay here,” he said, releasing my hand. He disappeared under the pilings.

Without him, I felt vulnerable. The sky had cleared, and the shore of the river was visible under the nearly full moon. Jessie reappeared what must have been only a few minutes later, but it felt like forever. “Who is it?” I asked, begging inside my head for it not to be Blossom.

“A transient,” Jessie said. “I don’t think Viktor killed him. I think he died of heart failure. He’s been there a few days.”

“Oh.” I felt both relief and compassion. “That’s sad.” I wondered if there was a way I could inform the police anonymously. It was awful to think about dying like that and having nobody know or care.

“I’ll have Viggo report it in the morning,” he told me as if reading my mind. “Right now, we need to think about Blossom. You don’t have any idea where she is? Where did you last see her?”

“We were at a party at the Tib.” I wasn’t sure if Jessie knew what the Tib was, but he didn’t react either way, so I just kept going. “She hasn’t been getting along with her boyfriend, and he said she’d left, but I’m the one that drove her, so I don’t know how she would have gone anywhere.”

“Have you tried calling her?” Jessie asked.

I shook my head. “Viktor arranged it for somebody to steal my phone.”

Jessie shook his head, cursing under his breath. When he was able to speak civilly, he said, “So, she might actually be fine. She might even be home. We can just go to her house and see if she’s there.”

My stomach was clenched as I thought about the time I spent enthralled in Jessie’s arms when I should have been searching for my friend. “Let’s hurry,” I said, grabbing him by the coat to urge him forward toward my car.

“Where does she live?” he asked, digging in his heels a bit like people do when you try to hurry them. “What’s her address?”

“I don’t know her address,” I told him, tugging on his arm even harder. “She lives on the corner of Oak and Marigold, but don’t worry about it. I’ll drive.”

“Hold on,” he said, sweeping me into his arms and then launching into the air.

A small shriek escaped my lips before I could stop it. I was not afraid of heights in terms of standing on top of a tall building or looking out over a cliff, but it was a whole different thing to be flying through the air without an airplane surrounding me. Jessie was grinning from ear to ear as I wrapped around him with both my arms and my legs. “You don’t have to worry,” he assured me. “I won’t let you fall.”

It felt like we were at Blossom’s door almost instantly. “I’ll wait over in the shadows,” Jessie said as he set me down on my two feet.

I gave myself a second to regain my composure before climbing the steps to the Costers’ porch. Without my phone, I didn’t even know what time it was, but the light in Blossom’s bedroom was still on, so I rang the doorbell. Making sure my best friend was safe trumped potentially annoying her mom.

I saw someone pull back the curtain a smidge and peek out to see who was outside. It was only common sense not to open the door to any old stranger in the middle of the night. A moment later, Blossom yanked open the door. “Aurora,” she exclaimed. “What’s going on?”

“Blossom!” I shouted. “What the hell are you doing here? Are you all right?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Calm down.”

“No, I won’t calm down,” I informed her. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere. I thought you got attacked or kidnapped or something.”

“No.” Blossom shrugged sheepishly. “I just broke up with Jimmy and felt like going home.”

“You could have told me!” I felt all my fear for her life bubbling over into anger. “I’ve been in the woods looking for you for hours. I could have been killed, and it would have been all your fault.”

“Sorry.” She didn’t even have the good grace to at least look a little abashed. “I saw you talking to Fred and didn’t want to interrupt. I didn’t think it was that big of a deal.”