Infinite Days (2 page)

“I wouldn’t have protested against that,” I said.

“Precisely why he believed me so willingly. It was a lie, Lenah. The moment you looked into my eyes on the fields and begged me for human life, I knew that my quest, my vampire life, your vampire life, what I had done to you, was coming to an end.”

“I shouldn’t have begged you. Manipulated you like I did.”

Rhode laughed, but the breath was short. “That is your way.”

I looked at the bandage around his wrist and the dark rings circling Rhode’s eyes. At that moment, a surge of guilt rushed through me. In my human state, I couldn’t imagine bribing Rhode or threatening him with suicide. It had been so easy for me before. Easy because the emotional pain that clouded the vampire life prevented rational thought.

“Please tell me about the ritual,” I asked again.

Rhode unwrapped the white ban dage, roll by roll, until his wrist was bare. There, on the inside of his wrist, were teeth marks, my teeth marks—two small indents on the inside of Rhode’s wrist. The one on the left was just higher than the one on the right; I always hated that my bite was uneven. I could have recognized my teeth marks anywhere.

“The most important thing is the intent. The success of the sacrifice—and
it is
a sacrifice—depends solely on the vampire performing the ritual. As I said, it takes two days.”

Rhode stood up. He paced whenever he was telling me something difficult. Sometime in the sixteenth century I had asked him why. He’d said it was so he wouldn’t have to look me in the eye.

“The intent is where most vampires fail,” Rhode continued. “You have to want the other vampire to live. You, in turn, have to want to die. It is the most unselfish act you’ve ever committed. As you know such selflessness is nearly impossible for the natural state of a vampire.”

“Who told you this?” I asked.

“When I left you for those years, I went to France. I searched for—”

“Suleen,” I said, though I was suddenly finding it very hard to breathe.
Rhode had met Suleen…in person.

“Yes. He was coming out of a fifty-year hibernation. When I described you and then told him of my plan, he comforted me with a compliment. He said that I might be the only vampire with soul enough to succeed.”

I raised my eyebrows in surprise. It must have been quite a special moment in Rhode’s life. I wished I had been there to see Rhode’s reaction when Suleen said something so significant.

I imagined Suleen. He was an East Indian man, or at least he had been some time ago—when, I have no idea. He is the oldest vampire alive. Nothing in the grand scheme of life would or could ever rattle his soul. Suleen is not hindered by death nor does he want to return to human life. All he wants is to live long enough so he may see the end of the world.

“There are a few more rules,” Rhode explained. “The vampire performing the ritual must be five hundred years old. Suleen mentioned something about the chemistry of a vampire of that age. It is a crucial ingredient. But most of all he kept saying, ‘The intent, Rhode. It’s the intent.’ The will and the desire to give up your life in order that another may live. Vampires are selfish, Lenah. Inherently so. I had to find that will within myself.”

“You sacrificed yourself?” I whispered. I was unable to look up from the floor. Rhode remained silent. He was waiting for me to look at him. I hated him for it. Finally, our eyes met.

“The ritual required that I gave you all of my blood. After two days, you woke up, more or less, and bit into me. I had to allow you to finish it—well, almost all of it. But the important thing was the intent, the chemistry of my blood, and my love for you.”

“I never would have agreed to those conditions.”

Much to my surprise, Rhode’s stoic facial expression turned into a smile. A toothy, happy smile. “Precisely why I did it when you were weakened and hibernating.”

I stood up. Now it was my turn to pace.

“So where is Vicken?” I asked, trying to think like a vampire. Trying to place all the pieces together. I had been asleep for one hundred years.

“He remains at your house in Hathersage with the rest of the coven. I believe he is awaiting your return.”

“Have you seen him since my hibernation?”

“He is too young for me to converse with as often as he would like. His energy tires me. Yet, when I stayed with them, he was respectful. He’s a fighter. Excellent swordsman. I can see why you loved him.”

My cheeks warmed, which surprised me. Then I realized, I was feeling shame. I snuck a peek at Rhode’s fingers holding the arm of the lounger. They were pruned, and wrinkled, as though all the liquid inside him had been sucked away.

“I do not blame you for loving another,” Rhode said.

“You believe Vicken loves me? As I love you?”

Rhode shook his head. “Vicken loves your outward appearance and desire for thick, congealed blood. I love your soul. As a mate to my long search on this earth. You are—were—the most vicious vampire I have ever known. I love you for that.”

I couldn’t respond. I thought of Hathersage, of the fields, of Rhode in his top hat and the deer grazing in the distance.

“Vicken will search for me,” I said. “As you know, he is bound to me. And when he finds me, the coven will destroy me. I created the coven to do just that. To seek, capture, and obliterate.”

“That is the exact reason why I chose this place.”

“Yes. Where are we?” I looked about the apartment.

“This is
your
new school.”

“You intend for me to go to school?” My head reared in his direction.

“It is crucial you understand.” Even in his weakened state Rhode stood up and towered over me. He glared at me with such a passionate fierceness that I should have been frightened. “Vicken will dig you up from the cemetery. I promised you would return on the final night of
Nuit Rouge.
The party ends October thirty-first.”

“So on the thirty-first he will find an empty casket. End of story.”

“It’s not that simple. October is merely a month away. You were a vampire, Lenah. One of the oldest of your kind.”

“I know what I was.”

“Then do not pretend that you need a tutorial in the seriousness of this situation!” Rhode snapped, and continued pacing very slowly. I was silent. Rhode regained some of his composure and again spoke at a low decibel. “When Vicken digs up the grave and discovers an empty casket he will search the earth for you. As you’ve said yourself, the magic that binds the coven has made it so. You made it so. He will exhaust himself—so will all of the coven—until they find you and bring you home.”

“I did not foresee myself in this situation.”

“Yes, well, luckily, for now, the magic that protects you allows a few luxuries: your vampire sight and your extrasensory perception.”

“So I did keep it, then,” I said, and stood up. I looked around the room again. Yes, as Rhode said, I could see all of the adornments in the room down to the knots in the wood floor and the perfection in the paint on the walls.

“The more you assimilate into this human existence these accompaniments will fade.”

How was I to process not being a vampire anymore but still retaining some vampire qualities? Could I be in the sun? Did I eat food again? These thoughts rattled within my head, and I stamped my foot in frustration. Rhode put his hand on my cheeks, and I was startled by how cold they were. It stopped my tantrum.

“You must disappear into human life, Lenah. You must go to school and become a sixteen-year-old girl again.”

In that moment, I couldn’t cry no matter how badly I wanted to—I was too shocked. Vampires cannot cry. There is nothing natural in a vampire. No tears, no water—just blood and black magic. Instead, the tears, which would spill over the cheeks of a normal person, in the vampire are utter and acidic pain that scorches the tear ducts.

I wanted to run or turn inside out, anything to curb the feeling that made my stomach burn. I balled my hands into fists and tried to fill the anxiety with a breath, but it caught in my throat. My gaze fell onto a photo resting on top of a bureau. It looked tattered and old, though the last time I had seen the photo, I was posing for it—1910, the last night of
Nuit Rouge.
In the photo, Rhode and I stood hip-to-hip, arms around each other’s waists, on the back terrace of my home. Rhode was dressed in his black suit and top hat; me, in a gown, my long brown hair tied and styled in a long braid that fell over my left breast. We were more than human. We were frighteningly beautiful.

“How can I do that?” I turned away from the photo to look at Rhode. “Hide?”

“Oh, I think you will find it easier than you expect. You have never been sixteen before. I snatched that away before you could.”

He stepped close to me again and kissed my forehead.

“Why did you do this for me?” I asked.

He pulled away, and the air shifted as the space opened up between us. “Of course, you must know,” Rhode said, and cocked his head to the side.

I shook my head to say that I did not nor could I ever understand what he had done for me.

“Because,” he continued, “throughout all of my histories I found no one I loved more than you. No one.”

“But I’m losing you,” I said, my voice breaking.

Rhode grasped me so my cheek pressed against his chest. I stayed there a moment and let my heartbeat echo between our bodies.

“And you think Vicken won’t be able to find me?” I asked.

“I do not think in his wildest dreams he will understand what I have done. It will take the entire coven’s effort just to follow us this far and I believe I have done my best to conceal our whereabouts. Also, why would he ever suspect you could be human?”

I stepped away and looked back at the photo portrait of Rhode and me.

“When will you die?” I asked, turning away from the photo, and sat back down on the couch. I brought my knees to my chest and linked my arms around my shins.

“The morning.”

We sat together and I stared into Rhode’s eyes for as long as possible. He told me of the changes in society. Cars, television, sciences, wars that neither of us, even in our vampire minds, could understand. He said that practical things were of the utmost importance to humans. That I would now be capable of getting sick. He had placed me in the finest boarding school in New England. A doctor, he informed me, was only a few buildings away. He begged that I complete school and grow up, as he had prevented me from doing.

We talked and talked and, without knowing it, I fell asleep. The last thing I remember was his eyes looking into mine. I think he may have kissed my lips, but that also felt like a dream.

When I awoke, the shades were drawn and the whole living area was shrouded in darkness. Across from me, red-lighted numbers illuminated the blackness. A digital clock said that the time was eight in the morning. I was on the couch and Rhode wasn’t in the red lounger across from me. I shot up. My muscles were stiff, so I stumbled and held on to the arm of the chair. “Rhode?” I called out.

But I already knew.

“No…,” I whispered. I spun in a circle. There were only four rooms: a bedroom, a bathroom, a living room, and a kitchen. Off the living area was a porch. The curtains were closed, yet the way the wind drifted inward made them billow. The door was open behind them. I pushed them aside and stepped out onto the wooden patio. I put my hand over my eyes as a visor. My eyes adjusted immediately as I scanned the porch, hopeful for only a moment.

Rhode was gone. From my life. From my existence.

I saw the onyx ring lying in the center of the tile. When I approached it, I realized it was in the middle of a tiny pile of glittering dust. It looked as though sand was mixed with mica or tiny diamonds. My Rhode, my companion for close to six hundred years, weakened from the transformation and self-sacrifice, had evaporated in the sun. I dipped my thumb and index finger into Rhode’s remains. They were cool and gritty. I pulled out the ring and slid the smooth metal over my new, sensitive skin.

I was alone.

Grief is an emotion not completely foreign to vampires but it feels more like a shift or a change in the direction of the wind. It is a silent flutter, a parasitic reminder of the many layers of pain that define the vampire world.

This was something entirely different.

The morning of Rhode’s death, I scooped the glittering dust into an urn and placed it on top of the bureau. Rhode had brought my jewelry box from Hathersage, so it was easy to find an old blood vial and fill it with a handful of his remains. I hung it from a braided chain around my neck.

I turned from the bureau and found a letter on the coffee table. I used a silver letter opener to slice the envelope and I started to read. It was nearly noon when I looked up from the pieces of paper. The letter held instructions on my new life, social expectations of the twenty-first century, and what I was to do with my days before school started. The beginning of the letter warned that I should start with simple food as my body wasn’t accustomed to eating and then digesting. I placed the letter down on my lap, then picked it back up again. The last paragraph of Rhode’s letter kept drawing me back to read it again and again:

There was an aching in my gut. Deep down where I couldn’t fill it. I tried to distract myself by looking out at the Wickham Boarding School campus. From my patio railing I could see a stone building with the words student center on the front. To the right and just behind it was a building with a high, stone tower. The distraction wasn’t working. I looked back to the papers Rhode left me.

One thing was certain: Rhode’s savings were more than anyone needed to survive in present-day society. The problem? I couldn’t touch it. My own money remained in the control of Vicken and the coven. I couldn’t access either funds because they would be able to track my exact location. I wasn’t sure of the workings of banks and “routing” as Rhode explained in his letter, but I was to deal exclusively in cash unless I had an emergency. He had left me a trunk’s worth.

Rhode’s instructions were clear. I was to work and to avoid spending his savings. “You might need them one day,” were the exact words he used. His letter also said, “Immersion is key to survival.” The thought of what Vicken could or would do seeing me, his former lover, his former queen, in this vulnerable state sent shivers down my spine. Vicken, like all vampires, has a lust for tragedy, a desire for tears, blood, and murder. Most vampires want to reach out, inflict the pain that constantly haunts them and siphon it out onto others. Despite my hesitation, I could imagine the scenario. What Vicken could potentially do to me, as a human…I shook my head quickly to divert the thought.

I was about to pick up a manual for a laptop computer when a knock on the door startled me from my thoughts. Hanging on the arm of the lounger was a simple, black sweater that once belonged to Rhode. I pulled it on over a tank top I was wearing and walked back into the apartment.

“Reveal yourself,” I commanded to the closed door.

“Um…,” a timid, male voice said in response.

“Oh, I mean, who is it?” I said a bit more gently. After all, I didn’t command a ring of vampires anymore.

“Car delivery for Lenah Beaudonte.”

I ripped open the door. “A car?!”

The boy behind the door was tall, lanky, and clad in a shirt that had writing scrawled across the front: grand car service. The hallway behind him was poorly lit, and the wallpaper had some sort of nautical theme with sailboats and anchors.

“I’m just here to deliver it,” the lanky boy said with about as much enthusiasm as a person delivering news of a relative’s untimely death.

After grabbing a set of very dark sunglasses from the coffee table (I can only assume Rhode left them for me) and a black floppy hat, I followed the boy out of my dorm apartment, down the stairs, and into the lobby. Once I was in the lobby, I hesitated in the doorway. Outside, birds chirped and the voices of students flew from all directions. The blazing sun blasted the cement walkway leading from the front of Seeker Hall, out onto a grassy lawn. Perhaps the sensitivity to sunlight was much like my vampire sight? Would I still be affected by it?

Sunlight breaks down the magic that seals the vampire, though the danger of sunlight lessens as the vampire ages in years. As one moves forward in their vampire life, the magic to withstand sunlight strengthens. Though I have heard that death by sunlight is nearly unbearable to experience. It’s supposed to be the worst pain, like being ripped apart and scorched to ash while conscious for every moment of it. Regardless of my age, I never directly stepped out into the light without protection.

I nudged a toe out of the doorway and let my foot and leg hit the sunlight. I whipped it back inside and paused. I twisted my leg so I could see the back of my calf muscle. I also checked my shin. No red mark. No burns.

“You gonna go outside?” said a voice to my right. The security guard, a squat woman with thick-framed eyeglasses, watched me. The way she spoke was so strange. “You gonna…” The phrasing of her words was
interesting
. “Gonna”—what could this possibly mean? I waited for her to say something else, but she just looked at me. Through my sunglasses, I moved my gaze to the car deliveryman. He raised an eyebrow at me from the sunny entryway. I was in a pair of thin sandals, wearing Rhode’s oversized black sweater, and a pair of shorts. I was ready. I took a deep breath and walked outside.

The summer heat was the first thing I felt. How glorious! Sunlight felt like a bath by a roaring fire, like sweat and happiness washing over me from head to toe. I exhaled happily.

Wickham’s campus was enormous. Although it seemed pastoral at first glance, the buildings were brick with sleek metal-and-glass façades. There were meadows of green grass and serpentine pathways that linked throughout the campus. In the distance, through swaying, leafy branches, a Colonial-style chapel shined white under the morning sun.

Seeker was the dormitory closest to the boarding school’s entrance gates. It also had the largest lawn. Directly outside the front door, a collection of girls were lying out on a blanket in the sun. They seemed to be wearing only their undergarments, but then after watching them a moment I realized their ensembles were meant for this kind of activity. I watched the girls rub a white lotion into their skins, adjust their blankets, and lie back down.

“So there it is,” the lanky boy said. He pointed at the parking lot, which abutted the lawn. In the row closest to the lawn was a baby blue car. My car. I couldn’t at the time tell you the name or the make, but just the idea that I had one was brilliant.

“You’ve got nice parents,” the kid said.

I started to walk toward the car when a group of students about my age (relatively speaking) ran by and pointed into the distance, past Seeker. To the left of my dormitory was a tree-lined pathway that led to the Wickham campus. Later I discovered that there were many pathways just like this that snaked all throughout the campus. One of the girls yelled to another pack of students trailing behind her.

“It’s one fifty-four! Come on! They’re gonna start in six minutes.”

“What’s the commotion?” I asked the car delivery kid.

“Enos brothers. Kind of a daredevil group. They race their boats out in the harbor, right in front of Wickham’s private beach, every Labor Day weekend. Been doin’ it for two years. The youngest Enos had to turn fourteen before they could do it together.”

I signed my name, took the car keys, and decided I would worry about driving later. I wanted to see the boat-racing Enos brothers.

I let the students run ahead of me; I wasn’t exactly ready to mix with the group. Wickham’s paths were lined on either side by tall oak trees. Even with the wide-brimmed hat and sunglasses, I tried to walk in the shade. On each side of the pathway were buildings that were designed in the same fashion as my dormitory, Seeker. Most were made from gray stone, with great glass windows and doors. Some of the buildings were marked with red signs on their lawns that declared their names and specific functions. It was all quite regal, actually. Most of the students on the walkway were heading toward the far end of the path, past a greenhouse (this piqued my interest), and down a series of stone steps that ended on a beach.

There it was: the ocean during daylight. So many nights I had spent watching the moon run a milky line across the top of the water. So many times I had wished it were the sun. Eventually I was old enough to withstand the daylight, though the beach was never a place I ventured. It’s not that vampires stand in direct opposition to the natural elements of the world. But the ocean, sunlight, and all of the happiness that comes with the beach during the day was just another place I couldn’t be. Another source of torment.

It smelled like salt, dirt, and crisp air. The way the sun dazzled on the water made me wish I could touch the light, wield it with my hands. It looked how I felt—happy. The beach at Wickham had various-shaped boulders that were scattered about the beige sand. The waves were no more than two feet and rolled lazily onto the shore. There must have been fifty people dotting the coastline. Like Rhode said, my vampire sight was as clear as ever, so I did a quick scan of the beach to find there were exactly seventy-three people standing about.

Not only that, but the sand was made from thousands of colors—corals, yellows, browns, and hundreds of shades of gray. Dark blue umbrellas had been stacked and laid against the storm wall that separated the beach from the campus. I could see the fiberglass in the poles of the umbrellas and each thread of fabric in the tops. A wooden boat dock jutted out about twenty yards from the beach.

An island sat in the middle of the bay, its landscape pretty sparse, just some tall oak trees and a sandy shoreline.

I turned from the water and approached the stone wall. It wasn’t too high, about six feet. I stuck a foot in one of the holes between the stones and I climbed up with ease. I sat down on top of the wall with my legs crossed. I still had my sunglasses on and I felt a bit more protected as a branch from a large oak tree shaded my spot. I leaned back on my hands and stared out at the ocean.

While I looked out at the island and watched the branches of the trees sway in the wind, I had a sudden feeling…I inherently
knew
that someone was watching me. My thoughts immediately went to Vicken, though this would have been nearly impossible. In this century, Vicken would have turned 160. At that age, most vampires cannot be in a shaded room during the day, but Vicken was different. He could be in the sunlight from a very early age. Also, he assumed I was hibernating. There would be no reason for him to search me out at Wickham. Although Vicken was my own creation, he was and always has been the most advanced vampire I have ever met.

I admit, it was a relief when I looked to the right only to find a group of girls a few feet away from the water staring at me. They looked me up and down, which was curious. I had friends who were female vampires, but they never examined me as though there was something wrong with my appearance. One of the girls was quite pretty. She was shorter than me, and had long, light blond hair. She was the one who was staring the most intently.

“Can I sit with you?”

An Asian boy stood on the sand. His blue jeans were ripped in a vertical line completely showing his right thigh. He wore two different-colored sandals—one red, one yellow—and a blue button-down shirt. His facial features showed him to be Japanese. I started to speak to him in his native tongue, “Why would you want to sit with me?”

He pressed his lips together, and his eyebrows screwed up. He ran a hand through his spiky black hair. “I don’t speak Japanese,” he said in English. “But my parents do.”

“Strange,” I said. “A Japanese boy who only speaks English?” I took off my sunglasses so our eyes could meet.

“How do you know Japanese?” He leaned his right hand on the stone wall and kept eye contact with me.

“I know a lot of languages,” I said. I stared through the brown of his irises, forging a bond. Vampires use the gaze as a way to see your intentions. If the person stares back at you, you can trust them. Sometimes this failed me, and I was lied to regardless. Once I discovered this betrayal, I had no problem ripping out their throats with my teeth. But this boy, he had a white aura and an innocence to his soul.

“How many languages can you speak?” he asked.

“Twenty-five,” I said honestly.

He laughed, seeming not to believe me. When I didn’t react but looked into his brown eyes quite earnestly, his jaw dropped.

“You should work for the CIA.” He stuck out his hand. “I’m Tony,” he said, and I shook his hand. I snuck a peek at his inner wrist. The veins stuck out just fine—he would have been an easy kill.

“Lenah Beaudonte,” I said.

“Beaudonte,” he said, drawing out the
e
so it sounded like
ay.
“Fancy. So can I?” He gestured to an open spot on the wall next to me.

“Why?” I asked. I didn’t inquire in a mean or accusatory way. I was genuinely interested in why this seemingly normal boy would want to sit next to a person like me.

“Because everyone out here pretty much sucks?” he proposed. He nodded in the direction of the pretty girls still looking my way. Now they were standing even closer together, occasionally peeking up at me. I smirked in response. I liked his honesty. I also liked the use of the word “suck” in a non-vampire situation.

Communication in this century was fascinating. It was so casual and without the formality that I was accustomed to hearing in the beginning of the twentieth century. Now, as many times before, I would have to adapt. For hundreds of years I had listened to the parting of lips and undulations of tongues. I had stood on the fringe and studied, translated, sometimes in many dialects, in order to find the best way to adapt and fit in. Understanding the way people spoke to one another assured that I could interact and mingle in society without being noticed—it made it easier to kill.