From Slate to Crimson (5 page)

“It's not too far from the truth,” I said.

“Then you’re not going to make a slave out of me after all,” Amelia said, more to herself than to me.

“You were never a slave,” I assured her for the third time, my voice weary with its repetition. “You are not, nor will you ever be a slave, Amelia. You are free to leave us here and now. You may be ill for a few days as your body purges our toxins, but you will be free. You will be watched for a time by my clan for your own safety, but you will live a happy life, free from us. But even if you choose to remain with us, you would still be free to come and go as you please, but you will be bonded to us by blood and biology. Still, the choice is yours to make.”

“But you do want me, don’t you?” Amelia asked. I wanted so badly to lie in answer to her question, but the truth found its way to my lips and burst forth before I could stop it.

“No. I
need
you.”

“You…need me?” she said, inadvertently allowing her beauty to assert itself.

“Why else would I have told you about us?” I said. “Surely you didn’t think that you were let in on our world for nothing?”

“But I’m only a teacher!” she protested, “And not a very good one, if my evaluations are any proof. I mean why me? What do you want of me?”

I suppressed my reaction of shock. Did she truly not know? Had she not guessed how much I wanted and needed her, even though I said so in no uncertain terms?

“It is not for your skills as a teacher that I need you,” I said, but went no further than this. “Tell me, would be able to identify the person you saw at the club if you saw him again?”

“I think so,” Amelia said after some thought. “I…I’ve always been so bad with faces. Wait a minute; I think I know what you’re getting at. You want me to go back to that club and find out who ratted on you, don’t you?”

“That’s the long and the short of it, yes.”

“But what if they were working for this Lothos person?” she said, fear for the first time, encroaching upon her thoughts, despite my efforts to subdue it. “I don’t want to get mixed up in your little war.”

“But you already are, Amelia,” I said, sternly but gently. “You’ve been involved ever since we caught you spying on us.”

“But this isn’t
my
war,” Amelia said, emphatically. “I was only curious; that's all. It’s human nature.”

“Curiosity can often be a fatal flaw,” I said, my own heart breaking at the tears that now formed at the edges of her beautiful eyes. “And yes, Amelia; before you ask,
I could still take it away, but not without residual fragments. It wouldn’t be good for you. I would have to erase so much that you’d spend a great deal of your own life trying to find out what happened in those lost hours. And again, your search would probably lead you back to us.

“I’ve seen it happen before. Moreover, you’ve been touched by our kind, and this is something that even Lothos’ clan can sense. We would have to expend precious resources in order to keep constant watch over you for a long time, as you, even in ignorance, would be more of a target than ever.”

“But if my memory of all this is gone…” Amelia ventured to say, but I stopped her with a gesture.

“Memories can be reconstructed,” I said. “Lothos has ways of doing it, none of them pleasant. He would take you for everything you had, and then…”

“He’d kill me?” Poor girl. She was truly so naïve.

“With the enemy, death is seen as a release, not a punishment,” I said. “No, they’d do much worse to you. Even I don’t know all their ways and means, nor do I care to know, but I have heard rumors, and I think that I’ve frightened you enough for one night.”

I had upset her, and I was so sorry for it. But she had asked to know, and I did not deny her. “This isn’t real,” she whispered, cradling her face in her palm, shaking her head. “This just can’t be real.”

“It
is
real,” I said. I leaned forward and removed her hand to look her squarely in the eyes. My own eyes must have been so disturbing to her: blood red irises, with slitted pupils, like a cat, as compared to her lovely gray orbs. “The most important thing for you to do right now is to accept that this is reality, and not something that you can deny and hope will just go away.”

“I can leave,” she said.

I nodded in agreement, but knew that she had made the decision in her heart. “You won’t,” I replied.

“You don’t know that,” she said. “You offered me the chance.”

“You would’ve done it long ago.”

“I don’t want to go back to that club!” Amelia retorted, the desperation in her voice transforming her words into a strained keen. “I don’t want to do this alone, not after what I know. I don’t want evil vampires hounding me; I’ll panic!”

“No one said that you’d be doing it alone,” I assured her, and smiled. I felt my skin grow warm as I took her hand in mine. I saw the color returning to her face. “Humans in our cause are never allowed to take solo actions.” I then gleaned the address of the club from her mind, and came upon a pleasant surprise. “And besides, there’s barely any danger of you running into Lothos, or his clan…seeing how I own that club.”

“You…own it?” Amelia said, at first surprised. Then her eyes narrowed. “Wait a minute. My friends know the guy who owns the place, and he’s not you…unless you can change your shape as well? Like to a fat body and a pink Mohawk?”

“No, not me,” I said, laughing at the image her words produced in my head. “But I
do
own the place. The person you were talking about is only a front man. And he knows me.”

“Wait, I never even told you the name of the place,” Amelia said. “How do you even know it’s the same place you were talking about?”

“I saw the image in your mind. The club is called
Pink’s
, right?”

“Yes,” she said, awestruck. A strange grin played at the edges of her mouth. “Yes, it is.”

“Then seeing how there aren’t any other clubs with the same name in town, I think it’s safe to assume that it’s the club I own. I can show you the deed, if you like.”

“No, that’s okay,” Amelia said. “I believe you. I don’t understand why, but I do.”

“There are things about us that take a while to understand,” I said. “You’ve only just barely scratched the surface.”

“No arguments there,” Amelia said, and laughed in spite of herself. “It’ll take me weeks just to get my head around all that you’ve told me already. So should I go tomorrow?”

“No. Not tomorrow.” I shook my head.

“Why not?”

“Because you’re still too weak to be up to it.”

“I feel fine,” Amelia said, and leaped out of bed before I could stop her. That food you gave me did wonders. See?” She tried to spin, and then promptly collapsed. With preternatural speed, I stopped her before she hit the floor.

“Weird…” she said in a slurred, breathy voice. “I…I was able to come to you a little while ago.”

“But that was before I fed from you a second time,” I said. “I told you the first time is a shock to your system,” I placed her back into the bed. “I took more blood from you than I should have. It’ll take you at least a day to recover.”

“Just a day?” Amelia said, confused. “Doesn’t it take several days to replenish blood?”

“Not for you,” I said. “Not anymore.”

“I gather this goes under the ‘Things It’ll Take a While to Understand’ list?”

“No. You'll understand it soon enough.”

I felt a wave of annoyance rise within her, and then quickly subside with momentary apathy and weakness from my drink. She did not know it, but she was much stronger than even I expected to be able to move as much as she was. “Well, I'll admit that I have been feeling a little weak,” she admitted, making for a most amusing understatement. “But you’ll have someone with me when I
do
go?”

“Of course,” I said.

“If you promise you will, then I’ll do it,” Amelia said.

“I promise, then.”

“You’ll probably be sorry you chose me,” she said. “I’m not whatever it is you think I am…unless you plan to turn me?”

“No,” I said. I almost snapped this. “Never. Not you.”

“Why not?” She did not cringe at my sudden change in demeanor, but I could both hear and sense her disappointment at my words.

“The decision to turn someone is not something that is taken lightly,” I replied, immediately regretting my earlier vehemence.

“But why not me?” She was practically whining it. “I could serve you better if you—”

“Enough!” I looked her squarely in the eyes. “Amelia, this isn’t about ‘serving’ anyone. Humans from all walks of life work with our clan, and are never turned. For anyone to even be considered for it, certain conditions must be met. It’s the way we have done it for millennia. And no, I will not discuss those conditions here. No human can even begin to fathom what it’s like to be one of us. And if you knew for even a moment, you’d understand my reasons for not doing it to you.”

I closed my eyes and regained my composure. I knew that I should not have been so angry with her. She was, after all, only human, and had no idea what she was asking.

“I’m sorry. You’re so new at this. And on top of everything else, I still have so much left to teach you. If you choose to stay, then all I ask is for your patience. You’ve only just now stumbled upon a world that you once thought only existed in legends and nightmares, and there is much to tell you.”

She forgave me, but I knew she was still worried over a great many things. No amount of euphoria or after-effects of feeding would change that. This was something that I could only accept. After all, she was not the first human that I had introduced to my world. Despite her frustrations, her exhaustion caused her to drift off once again into full, restful sleep. She most certainly needed it; she had lost a lot of blood, and would sleep for a long time while her body changed.

The next evening, Amelia awoke with me, having slept throughout the night and day. I could tell that she felt much better as she ate ravenously from the fresh tray of food that I had provided. After she was finished, she looked to me with pleading eyes, and I could no longer resist her. I drank deeply as we fell into the bed. I did not stop until she cried out in the ecstasy that she longed for. Afterwards, we lay together on the bed, side by side. It was not until I had fully recovered from my own bliss that I realized that her hand was in mine.

“I feel a lot better than I should,” Amelia said. “Is this part of what you meant when you said that it wouldn’t take me several days to get my blood back?”

“That’s part of the effect of the drink,” I said. “You replenish blood much more quickly than a normal human. You’re also faster and stronger now than you once were. And should you choose to stay with us, you’ll live much longer than you normally would.”

“Really?” Amelia’s eyes grew wide. “How much longer?”

“Twice your normal lifespan,” I said. “Sometimes, even two and a half times longer. Plus, you share our immunity to all sicknesses and disease”

“Oh, wow!” She squealed, and I could not help but chuckle at her exclamation.

“Those benefits seem to sweeten the deal, do they not?” I said.

“How can I say no now?” Amelia rolled onto her stomach and kicked her legs back and forth in the air. “Why would
anyone
say no to that?”

“Because we’re vampires,” I answered matter-of-factly. “Sometimes that’s enough reason. Benefits be damned.”

“Then they’re fools, if you ask me.”

“Not really,” I said, and rolled over onto my stomach to meet her eyes. Amelia reached out her finger and brought a stray sliver of blood from the edge of my mouth to my lips. I licked it away from her finger with a grateful smile. How comfortable had she become with me in such a short time! “Because of our war, few of our human friends live to see the extent of years that our blood gives them. Few humans, even those who take coming into our knowledge well, will willingly walk into a war just to have the opportunity to live a hundred forty or more years.”

“I see,” Amelia said, her eyes downcast.

“It seems
you
have made your decision, though,” I said, gleaning her thoughts.

“I think I have,” she replied. “I wouldn’t have if you hadn’t agreed to have someone with me when I went to the club.”

“We take care of our own,” I said, my voice gentle and reassuring. “No humans go in alone, even our most highly trained take no solo actions against the enemy.”

“So who will be coming with me?” Amelia asked.

“I will.”

“
Really?
” I felt the happiness burst from her like sunshine.

“Remember how I said that I need you?” I asked.

Amelia nodded.

“You will never know just how much I do need you.” You are not just
a
host. You are
my
host…my
consummate
host. You and I are bonded.”

“You mean…like marriage?” Amelia asked, clearly not understanding my words.

“Not quite, but the relationship is almost as intimate. I have never had a host like you, Amelia. Ours is a rare bond among my kind. No human’s blood will ever make me feel the way yours does. And I doubt any vampire feeding from you will feel the same.”