Authors: Justine Larbalestier
Team Human (8 page)
T
he first thing I noticed was that this vampire home had artificial lighting even though all vampires can see perfectly in the dark and, as the vampire cop had promised, a kitchen too. I had to assume both were for the benefit of the guy, who was currently sitting on the kitchen counter staring at Cathy with a great deal of curiosity.
“Francis isn't here,” he observed as his vampire momâhe'd really called her that, presuming we hadn't misheardâasked us, “Tea?”
“No, thank you,” I said as Cathy whispered the same thing to the floor.
“I am Camille,” the vampire said. “This is my son, Kit.”
We hadn't misheard, and now she was agreeing with him. How was that possible? Forget the fact that they didn't look the least bit alike. Camille was small, bird-boned, her hair a sheet of midnight black (very appropriate for a vampire). Kit was tall and lanky, his hair an explosion of brown curls.
It made sense that vampires would still take an interest in kids they'd had before turning, but I didn't think that was what was going on. The older vampires are, the less human they look and behave. Camille's skin looked like white stone and she moved like water.
“Hi, Camille. Hi, Kit,” I ventured, sitting in the chair Camille had indicated. Cathy cautiously lowered herself onto the chair next to mine, careful not to look either one in the eyes. Instead of asking the obvious: “How on earth are you his mom?” I said, “I'm Mel and this isâ”
“The famous Cathy,” Kit finished.
Cathy blushed and lowered her gaze even further, studying her own feet. At least she'd believe me now that Francis did think she was special. That was the only positive I could think of.
“Who makes Francis so very happy. That's a line from the aforementioned ballad,” he explained. “In case you've been fortunate enough not to hear it. It's probably the best line in the whole thing, which I think speaks volumes as to how very bad it is.”
I giggled. Kit immediately turned to me and smiled brilliantly.
He had a great smile, bright and a little wicked. Though it was weird to smile like that at a complete stranger trespassing in your home.
Of course, everything about this situation was weird.
“Francis wrote a love ballad about Cathy?”
Cathy blushed even deeper. I wondered how it would feel to learn that the love of your life had written a ballad about you? Probably very different from learning that he was using you as a test subject for his book on humans and love.
Kit nodded. “For the last few days he's been singing it nonstop while accompanying himself on the lute. I offered to burn the lute during the day, but Mom won't let me.”
“An officer of the law cannot sanction destruction of personal property, no matter how tempting,” said Camille, who was making tea despite the fact we had refused it. “I do admit, however, that it is
very
tempting.”
Cathy looked up, clearly torn between protesting the aspersions cast against Francis's lute and her shyness in front of strangers. She looked down again.
“I liked Francis a lot better before he was crossed in love,” Kit remarked.
“No, you didn't,” said Camille, leaning over Kit's shoulder and presenting him with a brimming teacup. He grinned.
It was creepy. Camille sounded like a mom, exasperated and fond, but she looked too young to be Kit's mom and, well, too like a vampire to be anybody's mom.
When Kit grinned at her, there was no answering grin on Camille's face. It made my skin crawl, seeing her smooth, statuelike face next to his, and their hands touching.
I looked away. Maybe that's why he'd smiled like that at me. Nobody in this house full of the quiet undead would ever have laughed at one of his jokes.
When I looked back, Camille was seated at the table, her face wearing the same nonexpression as before, but Kit was looking at me. He had one eyebrow raised, and he was scowling slightly.
I raised both eyebrows back at him. (I can't raise just one, however much I practice in front of the mirror.)
Kit's face, which was extremely expressive, possibly as some sort of compensation for living among vampires, moved from a scowl to a smirk and then back to a smile.
“To be clear. It's not that I don't like Francis,” he said. “It's that ⦠you know how Francis has an opinion on everything? On account of how he knows everything?”
I nodded. “I am aware of this aspect of Francis's personality. Yes.”
Cathy made a small sound.
“He loves to impart his knowledge. And since he deems me to be the least wise of our shade and quite possibly of the entire world, I'm the lucky recipient of the majority of his pearls of wisdom.” Kit shuddered. “And his bons mots.”
Kit referring to himself so casually as part of a shade was like hearing a fish saying they belonged to a flock of parrots. Yet it seemed rude to point out that he wasn't a vampire. Like telling a crazy person that they're not Napoleon.
“No, darling,” Camille drawled, “it's that the rest of us heard them long before you were born.”
“He also likes to study me.” Kit mimed Francis holding a magnifying glass. I laughed again. The resemblance to Francis was uncanny.
Kit looked utterly delighted, and again it made me shiver to see him respond like that, a born class clown in a house of vampires.
“I was his human in captivity,” Kit continued, trying to get me to laugh again. “I was questioned. Measured. Examined. Probed.”
I thought about the human subject Francis had mentioned in his file. Was this why Kit was kept here?
It didn't sound funny at all.
“Kit!” said Camille.
“Okay, not
literally
probed.”
“You're not in captivity!” Camille protested.
Kit's attention went from me to her. He frowned in concern.
“Sorry, Mom. Just being dramatic.”
“He was studying us, too,” I volunteered helpfully, trying not to show how uneasy they were making me. If they'd captured Kit to study him, what would stop them from keeping me and Cathy? “But I think he gave up on us,” I added firmly. “We were useless to him. That's us. Totally useless.”
“I think he only enrolled at your school because he decided I was too small a sample size for his magnum opus,” said Kit.
Cathy shook her head but didn't say anything. Maybe she was still so focused on the Francis-writes-love-ballads revelation to think too deeply about what Francis's magnum opus could be.
“That's a big burden for you to carry,” I said to Kit. “Being a representative of all humanity.”
“That's what
I
said! I also told him if he was so interested in humanity, he could start watching TV. A week's worth of
Real Schoolkids of Chicago
or
Celebrity Janitor
would satisfy his curiosity forever. But Francis doesn't hold with TV.”
“Or texting. Or voice mail. Or the internet. They're all soulless machines for communication that areâ”
“Destroying the delicate interplay of social intercourse,” Kit and Camille finished for me, in unison.
Apparently Camille joining in was the last straw. Cathy let out a low moan.
“I love him,” she said, “and all you can do is laugh at him!”
Which was the moment Francis chose to return home.
He stood on the threshold of the house, holding a bouquet of dead roses, staring at Cathy. She rose from her chair. Neither of them said a word. They were too busy staring at one another.
“You have a visitor,” Camille remarked dryly.
“We think she might be that Cathy you've mentioned once or twice,” Kit said.
I laughed. Kit beamed. Cathy swooned.
“D
oes she do that a lot?” Camille asked as Francis held Cathy's supine body in his arms and gently splashed water in her face.
“She hasn't been eating,” I replied. “Because of her broken heart.” I really wanted Francis to put her down, but he was holding her so gently and looked so concerned.
“Make her food,” Camille commanded Kit. “Something reviving. I shall make more tea.”
Tea making seemed to be Camille's favorite domestic task.
I hovered uselessly next to Cathy, wondering if I should call her mother and realizing that this would all be very difficult to explain. Please be okay, I begged her silently. I'd never seen Cathy faint before. She hardly ever got sick. She didn't look it, but she was tough.
She'd always been tough. Until she'd met Francis.
Her eyelids fluttered. “Francis,” she murmured.
“Cathy,” he murmured back.
“Heathcliff,” muttered Kit, as he set about making sandwiches. I couldn't help giggling again. Kit turned to me with a huge grin on his face. “She'll be okay,” he whispered.
Kit seemed to be recovering. He'd looked badly startled when Cathy went down. I suppose if you're used to living with invulnerable vampires, seeing someone topple would be pretty disconcerting.
Francis helped Cathy sit up. “Oh,” she said, putting her hand to her forehead. Then she seemed to realize that she was in Francis's arms, and she blushed. “Oh,” she said again.
“You fainted,” I informed her.
“You caught me,” Cathy said, gazing up at Francis with admiration.
I wished that I could say he hadn't. But he had. Francis had moved faster than I'd ever seen a vampire move before. He was holding her before she was halfway to the ground. It had been most impressive.
Kit held out a cheese-and-tomato sandwich on a chipped plate.
“You should eat, my darling,” Francis said, lifting her up effortlessly and depositing her on a chair.
“Oh, I couldn't,” Cathy protested.
“We think that's why you fainted,” I said. “How much have you eaten in the last few days?”
Cathy blushed.
“Have one bite,” I begged. “You'll feel better.”
Kit held the plate closer to Cathy, waggling it encouragingly.
“Oh, no,” Cathy began.
“Please eat, darling,” Francis urged, taking the plate from Kit and placing it in front of Cathy. “For me?”
Cathy picked up the sandwich and took a bite. I tried not to feel wounded that she would eat for him but not for her best friend.
“It's a very good sandwich,” she said, presumably to Kit, who had made it, though she was looking at Francis. She took another bite, and then another, and then ate the whole thing faster than I'd ever seen her eat before. Kit made her another sandwich, and Camille gave her a cup of tea.
“Thank you,” she said. “I'm sorry to be such a bother.”
“You could never be a bother,” Francis assured her.
“Yes, you could,” I protested. “When you weren't eating or moving from your chair, you bothered me. I was bothered. Very.”
Cathy wasn't listening. She was too busy eating her sandwich, sipping her tea, and staring at Francis.
They looked lost in each other's eyes. Like I would need to make a tiny eye map for each of them to be able to find their way out, and even then they wouldn't want to.
It was even worse than I'd thought. If Francis was also clinging to this delusion of being star-crossed lovers, and by the sound of thingsâlove ballads!âhe was, this whole thing was going to get even more drawn out and messy and painful for Cathy when it ended. I leaned back against the kitchen counter, very close to tears. I blinked and dug my fingernails into my palm. I was not going to cry.
“You'll come back to school, won't you?” Cathy asked.
“Iâ” Francis began.
“Yes, he will,” Camille interjected.
I felt so betrayed. Camille was a creepy vampire, who had leaped upon us with a jugular-tearing glint in her eye, but at least she had seemed sensible. A sensible vampire cop who made tea!
I guess she couldn't take any more of the love ballads. But it seemed cruel to inflict Francis on us instead.
“I will,” Francis said.
“I'm glad,” Cathy murmured. She looked down at the floor and blushed.
Francis took Cathy's hands into his. They resumed gazing into each other's eyes.
“Really?” I said to Camille. “You want him to go back to school. Don't you think that's a bad idea?”
“Yes, Mom, I thought you wanted to, um”âKit lowered his voiceâ“not encourage this madness. Your words, not mine.”
“Too late now,” Camille said, waving in the direction of the lovebirds. “Besides, I think the human school has been good for Francis. It got him out of our hair.”
“No, it didn't. He was away during the day, when you're all resting.”
“Yes, but he rested more at night. Not to mention that it got him out of your hair, Kit. Don't you enjoy him not following you about asking questions all day?”
Kit, grabbing Cathy's plate and their mugs, conceded that he did.
I tried to intervene at this point. As an uninvited guest, I felt the least I could do was wash the dishes. But Kit had plenty of reach on me, and he held the plate well over my head as I followed him over to the sink. I watched him carefully and managed to seize the plate out of his hands as soon as it was clean. His wet fingers slid against mine as I grabbed at it, and he started and then looked at me, eyes shocked-wide and blue.
He never had a chance of keeping his grip.
I dried the plate and put it back in the cupboard, which was about the emptiest kitchen cupboard I'd ever seen. I guess they didn't have many dinner parties, what with only one person in the house eating.
“Hasn't he been unbearable since he was separated from âstar-kissed Cathy'?” Camille continued from the table.
“Star-kissed Cathy?”
Kit grimaced. “The ballad.”
“He only recovered from his last broken heart a few decades ago. And that was the girl he loved before he turned. Romantics,” Camille said, able to convey her derision with the faintest movement of one eyebrow.
Francis and Cathy seemed to have been rendered deaf by love.
I realized Cathy was never going to say it, even though she was always the polite one, so I offered belatedly, “Sorry about the break-in.”
“Not to worry,” Camille said, with another glance at the happy couple. “I can see that it wasn't your idea.”
“Mom's probably glad you broke in,” Kit said in a low voice, even though I was fairly certain Camille could still hear us. “She's always going on about wanting me to hang out with other humans.”
I laughed again, but it wasn't even a good fake laugh. All I could think of to say was “Moms, huh? And their crazy mom insistence that you interact with your own species! By the way, how exactly is she your mom?”
I didn't say it.
At least he did know he wasn't a vampire. Phew.
Kit could tell the laugh was fake. He did not beam. His eyebrow went up in a silent question as he washed Cathy's teacup.
I didn't answer the question. I wasn't the mystery here.