Twice Bitten (15 page)

We headed down the hallway toward the staircase, the coolness of his presence chilling me beyond the reach of the heater fans hard at work, now that the sun had gone down. But, what a couple we made at the moment. Him dressed in a beige turtleneck sweater and dark tweed slacks and black dress boots, and me attired smartly beyond my normal means. At least the ship’s ceiling mirror near the stairs gave that impression, also dispelling a vampire myth for me. They do cast reflections. Or, at least this one does.

“So, what would be on a vampire’s mind?” I asked, while we climbed the spiral staircase. He followed close behind me, and a glance over my shoulder revealed his gaze was drawn to my right foot. I tried to feign a normal walk to hide my injury. “Certainly not a woman’s shoes.”

“You are such a jester, Txema!” he said, looking up into my face. His expression mirthful, his eyes seemed concerned. “What a male vampire wants is the same as any other blood drinker.”

“And, what’s that?” I persisted. We had just reached the gate near the long bar from earlier. It sat deserted at the moment, although jovial laughter and merriment resounded from the dining area above us.

“Companionship,” he replied, drawing a surprised look from me. “Companionship and blood.”

***

“Well, here she is!” Racco stepped away from the table where we had sat together a few hours earlier. Replacing the food array was a double-necked swan, ice sculpture with what looked like a punchbowl attached. “What lovely flowers, Txema! We were just talking about you and your ordeal from last night.”

He motioned for Garvan and me to come to the table.  Racco had changed into a more formal outfit, wearing a light blue, dress shirt sans a tie. For the moment, his dark dress coat was draped over the back of one of the chairs. Chanson and the petite red headed vampire from a few nights before, Raquel, were seated next to him, along with another female whom I didn’t recognize, whose long, straight hair was white. Armando and Franz were absent.

“You look rested!” said Chanson, her laugh playful. 

She got up from the table and came over to us, seemingly human in her casual saunter. I found it refreshing that a vampire might not feel the need to use their preternatural speed to move from one spot to another. Dressed in black tights with a plum, low-cut sweater dress that accentuated her gorgeous figure, she frowned when she reached us. A little casual compared to everyone else, it worked for her form and presence.

“Raquel, find a suitable vase for these,” she said, motioning for the bouquet while Raquel suddenly appeared next to her. The diminutive vampire seemed delighted by Chanson’s directive. She immersed her face in the flowers, which made me wonder if this is how she managed to gain such a similar scent. Maybe that’s how they all did it, to gain such distinctive aromas.

My eyes followed Raquel’s progress back to the table with her face still buried in the roses, as if she were determined to drain the very pigment from the crimson bouquet.

“What has happened to your ankle?” Chanson drew my attention back to her. She kneeled before me and took my ankle in her hands. Holding onto Garvan’s arm, I grimaced as she pulled my foot out straight, sending a fiery stinging sensation from my ankle to the tip of my toes. “I should have done something about this when we first met, since I noticed your limp the other night, as well.”

Immediately, a surge of warmth traveled down my toes to my ankle. I wanted to giggle, as the pleasure surprised me. But, I tried to remain nonchalant, since the other vampires sitting around the table stared intently at me. 

“My God…this is
so
unreal!” I whispered, unable to mask my astonishment when the swelling and pain disappeared. “How’d you do that?”

“The same way you can,” she replied, offering a knowing grin as she stood back up. “Any female who bears the teardrops on her neck can do this.”

My gaze was drawn to the left side of her neck, where the small, dark birthmarks looked even more like stenciled gang initiation ‘tears’ than they did the other night, accentuated by her ashen complexion. 

“We should introduce her to Nora before she and everyone else decides we are being rude,” said Garvan, a look of sly amusement illuminating his beautiful eyes.

“Yes, I suppose we should,” she agreed. “Come, let’s show you off to the king’s chaperone.”

She led the way back to the table, where the white-haired female stood to greet me. She wore a long, elegant evening gown, black silk, seemingly overdressed compared to everyone else. I would’ve felt self-conscious in her presence if not for Chanson’s outfit and the sleek emerald spaghetti-strap dress Raquel wore. I guess when you only have a small circle of immortal peers to impress, anything goes.

If not for the color of her hair, I would’ve assumed this vampire was only a few years older than the others. Her face bore no lines—no telltale crow’s feet or smile lines. Just elegant, classic beauty. A marvelous floral scent embraced me as she stepped forward, smiling, with her black-gloved hand extended.

“It’s hyacinth, dearest,” she advised, her light-blue eyes sparkling. She chuckled warmly. It seemed they all got a kick out of reading my mind and seeing my uncomfortable expression when my thoughts were exposed. Her accent was unmistakably British, refined, and reminded me of the better BBC programs my mother likes to watch on cable. “I am Nora Sterling, personal assistant to King Gustav Domnul-delael. It is such a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Txema!”

I grasped her hand to politely squeeze it, not overly surprised at the coolness that penetrated the glove’s soft velvet. 

“It’s nice to meet you, too,” I said, returning her loving smile with my shy one. “Is the king you serve also a vampire?”

“He is the king that we
all
serve!” offered Racco, who was in the process of ladling a bluish punch concoction into a glass. “Since the mortals among us need standard sustenance, I suggest the rest of you humor Txema, Mercel, and myself as we move into the banquet hall for dinner. For the ‘undead’ gathered with us tonight, I am pleased to announce that the bar is stocked with the finest Type O, B, and RH negative money can buy!” 

He laughed merrily, and moved toward a pair of double doors in the rear of the room. I recalled seeing the doors earlier, assuming they opened to a kitchen or someplace similar. The doors automatically opened as we approached, revealing a much larger room, although definitely not the ship’s kitchen. 

Surrounded by windows on all sides, a long cherry table sat in the middle of the room, with plush leather chairs around it. The table bore an array of delectable entrees—like roasted chicken and prime rib—a variety of bread, and exquisite deserts. It seemed like an extravagance unless a hell of a lot more servants than attended our earlier meal would be joining us tonight. Two servants, both young females wearing standard chef’s hats stood near the chicken and beef, holding sharp carving knives, ready to serve us.

“Please make yourselves at home while Txema and I have dinner,” said Racco, motioning to our four vampire companions to see Mercel at another long bar in the back of this room. He called to his assistant, giving further instructions in French. Something about joining us at the table after the vamps got a wineglass full of their chosen blood type for the night. I tried not to think long about the mixing and matching that surely took place, if any of our vampire companions requested an option beyond the three choices mentioned by Racco.

He motioned for me to join him near the head of the table, and after picking up my plate, I followed close behind him. I added more items than I intended, which told me my hunger was worse than I had presumed when Garvan came to get me. 

“So, what do you think of our alchemist friend?”

Chanson spoke from behind me, right after I had glimpsed her being served a crimson beverage at the bar. At least her lilac scent forewarned me of her near-instantaneous change of location.

“Do you mean Racco?” I glanced at her over my shoulder.

She nodded with a wry grin on her face. At the time, our host was helping himself to a slice of prime rib on the other side of the table from me.

“We’re not talking about some kind of wizard here, who’s trying to turn lead into gold, are we?”

Now it was my turn to grin wryly.

“Actually, we are,” she said, motioning for me to sit down with her at the middle of the table. I felt a momentary tug of guilt, since Racco had asked me to join him in the seat next to his, at the table’s head. “He was pretty good at it, too, from what I understand. But that was centuries before I was born.”

“Huh?”

She laughed at my response, pausing to drain the rest of her blood drink, which I was grateful for. If they had just said it was tomato juice or a V8 cocktail, I would’ve been fine with that illusion. Instead, knowing that the blood from a fellow human being served as a dinner replacement was difficult to accept—regardless of the fact this was a much more humane way to quench her unnatural thirst.

“He told you his last name, did he not?” she asked, playfully, her green eyes aglow from her glee…or was it the blood infusion?  “Saint Germain?? Certainly you’ve heard the legend of the only immortal man ever to live?”

“Comte Saint Germain…the German Alchemist that supposedly was a buddy of Louis XV and Voltaire?
That
Saint Germain??” It seemed unfathomable, although what’s the believability difference between an immortal ‘living’ human and a vampire?

“No, he is not
that
Saint Germain,” she advised. “It is his younger brother.”

I didn’t know what to say, since it was hard enough to believe in the existence of the more famous immortal St Germain.

“Racco and Comte were alchemists long before history credits Comte’s earthly existence to have begun, which as you know was supposed to be during the seventeenth to eighteenth centuries,” she explained. “Both of them keep their early exploits on earth a secret, but Gustav once told me that they preceded the birth of Christ by three hundred years.”

“How is that even possible?” I struggled to wrap my mind around it, glancing at Racco, who had just sat down. I must admit that sexual fantasies about a forty-year-old man are a lot easier to maintain than thinking about sleeping with Methuselah, even if the old man looked as virile and dashing as he did right then. “I remember reading that the Count—Comte Saint Germain—somehow discovered a formula which gave him eternal life. I thought it was a bunch of bullshit. And now you’re telling me that it’s all true, and that both he and his brother are immortals?”

“Yes,” she said, raising her glass to toast my glass of champagne. I tried to make sure I didn’t get the lip of my glass too close to the blood residue on hers. “And, to answer your unspoken question, Comte still walks the world in a fairly youthful body, as well. But, no one else has ever been able to join them, despite many additional attempts to add companions. So, unfortunately, as the decades, centuries, and millennia have passed, they have grown to loathe each other’s company.”

That made some sense, since despite Racco’s jovial personality, I detected sadness with him. Like he suffered from some lack of fulfillment, despite his lavish ship and boundless charisma.

“He is alone…like us,” she said, obviously the voyeur to my latest silent observation. “Oh, he has tried to recreate the potion that worked for him so long ago, but to no avail. His brother is the only one who knew the exact recipe, and didn’t want to share it with anyone other than Racco. Eventually, even he forgot the calculations and balanced mixture of elements. By the time Comte wanted a companion other than Racco, it was too late. The formula was lost forever, and all attempts to experiment with incomplete versions by both of them have had disastrous effects on the subjects who drank the elixirs.”

I could’ve persisted with more questions, but the rest of the vampires converged around me. Garvan sat next to me on my right, and Raquel and Nora took two seats across the table from us. I could see Racco’s irritation—or more likely, sadness—in his expression, since this left him to converse with only Mercel and one of the young server girls for the time being.

“Do not fret for him,” whispered Chanson, who cast a knowing glance across the table at her female companions. “He has us, and we have him. Who better to share meaningful friendships with, than someone who will be here at the turn of the next century?”

I guess. I suppose they’ll be talking about me in the past tense, if the subject of my present circumstances comes up for discussion at that time.

“Besides, he is too old for you,” added Garvan. He nodded to Racco, who returned his gesture with a reticent version of the same.

“We are
all
too old for her,” said Raquel, coolly, her comment’s iciness enough to draw Garvan’s ire. I heard a slight hiss escape his mouth as he bore his fangs at her. She responded in kind,

“Children, please!” Nora stood up, alternating her serious expression between them both. “Let’s be pleasant. Find something positive to talk about…you know the rules.”

They both nodded sullenly, which gave me a moment to ask Chanson about something that had bothered me since Garvan and I joined everyone that night.

“Where are Armando and Franz? Will they be joining us later tonight?”

“They are still in Tennessee, tying up some loose ends,” she said. “They will rejoin us shortly after we dock in Perpignan, near the southern Pyrenees Mountains. That is the current plan.”