Fairy Circle (28 page)

Saffron moved back from the sill and wrapped herself in her arms. After that totally awkward night in November, he had never mentioned this again. Just the idea that she should become what he was… She realized now that she had been kind of dumb to think he would never ask again.

Her squeamish actions inflamed his irritation, but he masked his feelings and quickly recited words to sway her back to him. “When you die, I won’t know who you’ll be born as or where you’ll be. It’ll take forever to find you and wait for you to grow up… Then you’ll be afraid of me all over again,” he pouted. “I’ll miss you.”

“
Won’t I become a fairy when I die? Won’t you come see me there?”

His attempt at pathetic melted into a sneer. He stared hard at her, as if to figure if she was very naïve or very dumb. “Go to the fairies? Why? Who did you murder? Did you molest a puppy? Have you worn white shoes after Labor Day?”

Saffron hunched on her tuffet. “What are you talking about?” And then she figured out what was going on; he was jealous. He had been sarcastic about the fairies before. She cleared her throat. “I see no problem with our continuing our friendship in the fairy world.”

He looked at her for a long time. He cleaned his teeth with his tongue, making little tweeting noises. “We would not be allowed to…be together in the fairy world.” He held her eyes and gauged her reaction.

She tilted her head and waited for him to go on.

“
Saffron, look. I have the power to end all of your misery. You’ve expressed the hard times you’ve had in your life - being forced to go to school, being forced to become a…” He winced. “…a clerk, being forced to go out into public. You would never have to do these things again. Indeed, as a vampire, it would behoove you to stay out of public consciousness. And when you are out in public, you would never have to feel bashful or embarrassed or inferior. The blood that will move through you will fill you with such confidence. Believe me, it is a feeling like none you have ever experienced before. And this feeling, Saffron; it never goes away. Always, for the next thousand years, you will feel powerful and confident. You will never fear harm…be it intentional or accidental. You will never suffer death. But you may die terribly in this life if you do not heed me. There is no need for that! There is no need for such pain!” His nostrils flared. He was outraged at the way humans lived. They were worse than animals. He sniffed…and it was him they called a monster. “I take only what I need to live. When I take, I don’t hurt anyone. What does your government do? What do kings, and dictators do around the world? Go to war? No! Go to slaughter, I say! They encourage thousands, hundreds of thousands of children to get together and kill each other. So they can play their games. No. I am not the monster.

“
Saffron, being human, especially being a human woman, means you can’t even walk a city street at night. C’mon! Don’t you deserve to walk wherever you want, whenever you want, without getting mugged and raped?” He flung his hands up.

“
Jethin.”

Why was she speaking? She was breaking his stride, like a mosquito in his ear. “If your way is so much better, why isn’t everybody doing it?”

He smiled. It was the most beatific smile she had ever seen. “This is an exclusive club, my darling. You’ve got to be invited. Don’t you know why? Most humans are a bunch of simpletons. They’re too stupid to live, never mind graduate to all of this undead perfection.” He used his thumbs to point at himself. “Only when your soul has reached its zenith are you good enough to let it go and become…
vampire
.”

This statement, of course, was worth less than the manure stuck in a goat’s cloven hoof, but he found himself caught up in the moment, sowing incredible lies with ease, imagining himself a marvelous raconteur. It was his passion that had always made him believable. With passion, you can convince anyone of anything.

The time was now, he needed to hook her or lose her. And there was a bonus to be had out of this. He was so, so bored; he wouldn’t mind the company of such a pretty puppet. He completely understood why Li kept her tethered. Another bonus - she was still full of fairy magic. What if they tapped into
that
a little more; what would they find? And of course there was the point, the coup d’état - wouldn’t Li be pissed! He was going to have
his
way this time.

Saffron stared down her nose at him. “Congratulations on your Zenith Soul; it sounds like a Lady Gaga album.”
What In Thee hell was he talking about now?

“
It’s true, Saffron. It’s true! Consider this: most humans can’t handle the power of love. Right? Love is the absolute most basic of the primal powers. But love is too hard to master, so people turn to another basic power - hate. Hate is easy. Hate has limped along through the centuries, always striking out, but always being tempered by love. Yet, in each lifetime, humans grab onto hate as if finding a shiny pot of power for the very first time. They try it and it fails them. Their grandchildren try it and it fails them. Their great-grandchildren try it and it fails them. Do you see the pattern here?

“
But, ah, love…. Most humans can never learn to wield it. They don’t want to wield it because it takes constant attention, and cleaning, and polishing, and updating - too much work.

“
Believe me when I tell you, very few in humanity could ever handle this power that surges through
my
veins.” He shook his head sadly. “If they cannot even grasp the power of love, my power would make their heads explode.”

“
So, you became a vampire because of your great capacity to love?” Huh.
That
sounded…off.

“
Yes, Saffron. The greatest love, love of oneself.”

“
Okay. Now I see.” She checked to see if he was looking at her. He wasn’t. She rolled her eyes.

“
Saffron. You can handle this power. Within you, I see a great capacity for love. Please, don’t be alarmed at what I am about to tell you. I have notified my counsel of your existence, of your unique qualities. They are excited to meet you. You will be greeted as a dignitary among the vampire race!” (They knew nothing of her, and if not hidden well, she would be taken immediately after he changed her.) “And I, Saffron,” he reached for her hand and she gave it to him. He kissed her palm. “I will treat you like my queen.” It was the first time she had physically touched him. Cold washed beneath his smooth skin.

“
But Jethin,” she wrinkled her nose, “I don’t want to drink blood.”

Laughter exploded from deep within him. Saffron jumped and glanced back at her bedroom door. “SSsssshhh!”

“
Don’t worry about them, Saffron. They will sleep for as long as I wish. I have seen to that.”

Saffron pulled out of his icy clamp of a hand. What had he done? What had he done to her mother and Derek?

“
Relax.” He held his hands up in a placating manner. “They’re fine. They’re only sleeping.”

“
Yeah? Sleeping how? I sleep in my bed every night but we had to put my dog
to sleep
last year. What did you do to them?” Saffron discovered that he could really annoy her. She had never given him permission to exercise some kind of mind game or whatever he did over her mother and Derek. He never asked. She thought he didn’t have power inside her house. How much more was he capable of?

“
I didn’t do anything to them. It’s just a sound barrier trick. The fairies know it, everyone knows it but the humans and the gnomes.”

Mr. Gnome had eavesdropped on every conversation between the two idiots, that vampire and the human, since they had started. He kept himself well hidden in the brush by the antique tractor that Audrey never got restored. He ate sunflower seeds and garden contraband while he reclined and listened.

“
As for the blood, you develop a thirst for it. You will find, in time, that you crave it, worship it. You can still eat regular food, you know. It’s true. It’s a little-known fact that vampires can eat any food they want. It just won’t keep a vampire nourished like it would a human.”
And you won’t enjoy
it
, he thought but didn’t tell her. She didn’t need to know that all food would taste like glue when she became the undead. Gooey glue, crunchy glue, slippery glue, hot glue, cold glue. That about summed up the vampire food experience.

“
The food goes in, it comes out. As a vampire, if you want to rejuvenate, feel incredible and alive, well, then you must drink blood. This is not so strange. Do you know what
humans
eat by
choice?
Listen, in many countries people eat bugs. Humongous, burst-when-you-crunch-‘em, live
bugs. If you can’t take them straight, how about some chocolate covered cockroaches? That’ll help them slide down. Have you ever heard of Casu Marzu the Sardinian cheese? Sometimes it’s called “maggot cheese.” It’s goat cheese with fly larvae. The larvae eat the cheese as it’s fermenting and they are growing. Their waste gives it that special flavor…. I once went into a specialized market in Asia. They served a drink with a frog hopping around the bottom of the glass. It is customary to consume the drink in one pull, then munch on the frog. Let’s go to Alaska where we can eat fermented salmon heads; they’ve been rotting in the ground for a few weeks now, let’s have Puyuk dig them up and mash them into a pudding for us. Let’s drink coffee made from beans regurgitated by weasels. Yummy preserved ant eggs? Jellied moose nose? You look like a lamb-brain-with-rice-and-yogurt-sauce girl. No, no, not brain. Lamb’s eye in a vodka shot… Or Hasma, made from the fallopian tubes of frogs. Finish it all off with musk-flavored Lifesavers.”

Saffron had gasped at every delicacy.

“
People eat the feet, tongues, intestines, cockscombs, brains, and organs of animals. Around these parts,
in your own home
, people munch on the still-filled stomachs of mollusks! You love your pizza; am I right? Do you even know
what you’re eating when you eat every day? Did you know that there is pus in cheese? MmmMmm. Yummy yummy cow pus.

“
In desperate times, people eat the corn from their own waste. And there are even blood drinkers, human blood drinkers. Not the kids playing around in basements with expensive pointy-teeth dentures, but in South America, in Africa, in Asia, they eat the meat of their kill and drink its warm, collected blood from their earthen jars. For them, it’s not fantastic. It’s not for shock value or intimidation. It’s life. It’s the same for me - just life.” He shrugged.

Saffron’s face was yellow. She dry heaved, once.

“
So now you’re enlightened. Vampires prefer blood. It’s warm and clean, fresh and fragrant. It’s not such a hard concept to grasp.” His eyebrow rose. “There are much worse things than blood.”

“
I guess.” Saffron’s hand was covering her mouth; she was breathing through her fingers.

“
I really must go. Think about what I’m offering you. Think of all that plagues you just suddenly…disappearing. Think of burdens lifted and hardships flying away with the wind. Think of questions. I can give you a satisfactory answer to anything, because there is no more perfection in the world than this.” He indicated his chest. “Later.” With his customary eyebrow wiggle, he left.

***

Markis wasn’t happy. Something weird was going on with Saffron. Granted, he didn’t know her that well. But he’d been after her for months and they never seemed to get anywhere. She was so…preoccupied? He wasn’t quite sure. People never acted bored around him before, but now he wasn’t so sure. Was he boring her? It wasn’t like that in the beginning. She had liked him. He was sure of it. What had changed? When did it change?

When he had finally made a move to go over and talk to her, really talk to her, that night at the movies, he felt so
on
. He had always thought she was pretty. In school he often thought about bumping into her at her locker or dropping something near her table in the cafeteria. But he was always with his friends and she was always with her friends and the two groups didn’t mix. And she was always looking down, across, or up. She was always looking
away
. When he was able to snag her, lock eyes with her, her face would turn ten shades of red. Then she’d actually
run
away. It was fun at first, that he could get such a reaction from her. But, after awhile, he gave up. When Jeanine told him she was working at the Black Chicken he thought he finally had a chance to approach her slowly and without all of the high school drama to separate them.

At the theater, he saw the look in her eye. She was
thrilled
to see him. Her smile really did light up her face. It made his insides jellyfish and wiggle. He had had girlfriends before. He had crushed on loads of girls. In first grade, he used to lure girls into the coat closet and see how many times he could kiss them before Mrs. Walker pulled him out by his ear. On one such occasion, his parents were called in for a parent-teacher meeting. That night they discussed “propriety” and “discretion” with him. When his mother left the kitchen, satisfied with the verbal hand slap, his father waited until she was out of earshot before he clapped his son on the back. And while the great big, redheaded man stifled roars of laughter behind his large hands, Markis sat grinning, his legs swinging from the dining room chair. His father wiped the tears from his eyes. He smiled at his son, his little stud, his virile guy. Markis’s parents were called in at other odd times and told to corral their young stallion. His mother would pin both father and son with her evil eye, so they would keep their giggling to themselves. But who didn’t want such a confident little boy who was in love with the entire world? His mother was secretly proud.