Twice Bitten (52 page)

“Are you saying that some women among my ancestors simply woke up one day with this cursed thing on their throats?” I pointed at mine incredulously. “That’s fucking absurd!”

“So it would seem,” he said. “Although, it happened over the course of several years, each of the women given the mark all bore children with the same twin teardrops along the left side of their necks. At first, it was a mixture of males and females born with the birthmark, but eventually it became only females again who carried the ‘gift’. Truthfully, they were the only ones to survive, as I witnessed several male stillborns back then.”

I nodded pensively, more to let him know that I genuinely considered what he told me as true. Admittedly, there was enough implied information that enabled me to fill in most of the blanks for what he didn’t share…like the resultant peaceful co-existence between him and the majority of civilized vamps. Gustav and Racco definitely were on friendly terms when I watched them interact last November. But, I worried now that what Racco had just done by kidnapping Alaia and I could totally erase any and all goodwill between them.                                                                                    

“What do you believe will happen to you when Gustav and the others catch up to you?”

“Other than a nasty verbal confrontation and some bared fangs? Absolutely nothing!” He laughed, and Alaia made a chirping sound, as if she wanted to join in. She was fully awake and smiling at him again.

“Are you ready for me to take her off your hands yet?” I couldn’t help but smile at the two of them. “She’s probably ready for a change by now.”

“She seems fine…maybe in a little while she will be ready to discard me like her momma has,” he said, adding a playful wink for me to keep my dander down. “I know you are worried about the volatile anger you’ve experienced with the civilized breeds of vampires. It would take an incredibly horrid thing for them to even consider killing me.”

“How so?”

“Because I know how to permanently destroy them all,” he said, and his tone was a curious mixture of triumph and sadness, as if he truly knew the recipe but hoped never to use it. “Every vampire on the planet could be gone within a few days if I were ever to reveal their ultimate ‘true death’ formula.”

I suddenly remembered my conversation with Kazikli about the most common ways to kill a vampire, and how my guardians mentioned that a certain kind of silver could prove fatal to them. Kazikli especially seemed uncomfortable discussing the subject.

“Is the weapon ‘silver’?”

He eyed me curiously and shook his head ‘no’.

“Not silver in the sense we would think of it,” he said. “But, there is a metal that carries a similar color and has a nickname that makes it sound like the two metals are related in some way.”

He paused to study my confused expression, as if expecting me to guess the answer to his riddle.

“It’s a form of hydrargyrum, better known as mercury,” he said, pausing a moment for me to join in with the rest of the answer, which I still didn’t know. “You’ve never heard of ‘quicksilver’?”

“Yeah…yes I’ve heard of it,” I said, immediately seeing the connection to what Raquel had mentioned about a ‘particular kind of silver’ that could kill a vampire. “So, how is mercury worse for vampires than it is for humans?”

“When mixed with a certain rare version of the element gold it becomes extremely toxic for them. The mixture is lethal because of the mercury’s liquid form, which enables the elixir to spread through their bodies like a flame on a river of gasoline,” he said. “You probably already know that the fumes from combustible mercury are most harmful to humans, and if a child is involved, the exposure can kill them. A vampires’ immortality in some ways is like a young human child—the metabolism and growth rate of new cells is similar. Do you remember how I told you what happens to my body when we took the helicopter up into the Pyrenees Mountains back in November?”

“Yeah, I remember,” I said, nodding as I pictured our conversation. “You told me that your body’s cells are in a perpetual state of regeneration.”

“Yes, that’s precisely true!” he said, sounding quite pleased that I remembered what we discussed that day. “A vampires’ metabolism is even faster, which is why they have ravenous appetites that are difficult to control—especially for the younger converts. That same high metabolism becomes a literal fuse to a bomb when they encounter the gold-laced mercury I mentioned. A thimble-sized serving can kill an adult vampire in minutes, and a bathtub full could easily bring down most of Ralu’s army….”

“As well as destroy all of the civilized vampires in the world,” I whispered softly, picturing a horrible demise for the vampires I held dear to my heart. “You’ve never used such an elixir on anyone, I hope?”

“Never,” he said, and then relaxed in his chair while studying me again. This time he wore a curious expression. “Neither me nor my brother, Comte, created this elixir. He has never wished to annihilate our eternal companions any more than I have. It was devised by one of the oldest vampires alive today, and he did it as a means to end his own existence.”

“Who was that?”

I honestly had no clue as to who it could be, largely because I’ve never known a vampire who didn’t cherish their life—definitely not anyone in my immediate group of guardians. As for the ancient ones, Gustav seemed to thoroughly enjoy the regality and privilege of his kingly status. Ralu’s loathing was for his enemies only, and he obviously craved power and dominion over others. Nora has too much compassion for humans and vampires to fit the self-loathing vamp profile. As for Kazikli, despite his pleasant disposition and concern for others, every now and then I caught a glimpse of enormous inner turmoil….

“It’s not Kazikli, is it?” I thought about what this ancient vampire told me in our long talk alongside the Kosi riverbank in Nepal. His candidacy was more based on the fact he raised Comte and Racco in ancient Persia, and was responsible for their development as expert alchemists. By virtue of his knowledge of rare potions and magical elixirs alone, he would be a logical suspect.

“Yes, it was Kazikli,” said Racco, his tone filled with surprise while his expression bore admiration for my guess. “The first century of any vampire’s existence is the worst one, since it often includes long term separation from their creator into the undead state, for one reason and another. Add to that the inevitable old age and dying that eventually finds all of their mortal loved ones, and you have one hell of a depressing lot to face. Suicide is fairly frequent, but almost always drawn out and excruciatingly painful.”

“What, like stepping out into the sun?” I suggested. He nodded grimly. “It seems like getting beheaded or stabbed through the heart with a wooden stake would be better than what the elixir will do.”

“That’s true,” he said. “But the elixir was born out of Kazikli’s desire to find something quick and relatively painless. The end result failed to meet that expectation.”

“Sounds like he fucked up,” I said, adding a wry smile to try and lighten the mood that was heading south again.

“Yes, I believe in so many words that was his assessment,” he said, smiling wryly, as well. “It was in the early days of Ralu’s underground cave kingdom, and Kazikli experimented his potions upon the wilder, untamed vampires—the first Chupacabra strains that Ralu had encouraged by his own abstention from feeding on your ancestors’ sacred blood. None of the civilized vampires looked upon these others as their brethren, so killing a few of them in pursuit of scientific knowledge and improved sorcerer magic wasn’t disdained.”

“Oh…I’ll bet that’s another grudge held by Ralu,” I said, knowing how most humans would react to that sort of thing.

This fact alone shed light on the demon vampire king’s relentless violence toward the human race and any vampires who have opposed him. If this were how he and his kind had been treated for centuries—along with being hunted by humans armed with torches and pitchforks at midnight—surely an evil mind would believe the opportunity to extract prolonged retribution in the present age was deserved payback for all sins wrought against him and his progeny.

“Why don’t we suspend this discussion on such gruesome subjects for now?” Racco suggested, likely in response to my worried frown. He gazed out the window at the sun behind us. It steadily descended toward the western horizon. “You’ve hardly touched your wine…would you prefer that I freshen your glass?”

“Sure.”

I watched him as he walked over to a small bar nearby…so fluid in his movements, a man never out of control of himself.

“Would you like a chilled glass this time?” he said, wearing an impish grin. “Mercel told me how the colder glasses were your preference on Christmas Eve. Or, we could keep things as they are, in the more traditional way.”

“Geez… I forgot all about that.” I chuckled at the memory of me asking Mercel for a frosted glass after the first one was given to me on accident. I honestly don’t know why it became my preference that night, but it did. Maybe because I believed I was going to be stuck in a Siberian-like existence in China forever. “Yeah, I’ll take a frosted glass. What the hell.”

Racco chuckled along with me, and after allowing me a few minutes to freshen up and take care of Alaia’s needs, we soon were drinking his Bordeaux vineyard’s finest merlot and talking about lighter subjects. I thought it might mean avoiding all vampire topics, but that’s mostly what we talked about. We touched on my adventures in China and Nepal, as well as his search for a Ralu-proof safe haven in countries such as Italy, Greece, and Romania.

Talking with Racco felt good, and before long I started to warm up to him again. The wanton thoughts—my lust—were rekindled, despite his and Chanson’s history. If nothing else, such desires kept me from thinking about Peter and the life I had lost, and the fact that realistically I’d never qualify for such a wonderful life. Not as long as I carried the special blood in my veins that kept good vampires separated from the bad.

If not for my daughter’s presence, I might’ve acted on that lust and my need for a man after so many months foregoing all carnal desires. But, even if I had done so, Racco soon made it clear that his priority this time was my peace of mind and comfort, much more than a conquest for sex like what happened on our last shared experience together.

By then, it was nearing eight o’clock that evening, Atlantic Time. I had a few glasses of wine and so had he. But instead of leading me back to the lone bedroom on his personalized jet for sex, when I got there I discovered he had arranged for a bassinet to be placed next to one side of the bed—my side. For himself, he had set up blankets on a nearby cot.

“You need your rest, Txema,” he told me, after I allowed him to place Alaia inside the bassinet.

She sucked on her pacifier while looking up at us both, and it was only a matter of time before she’d fall asleep. I was having a hard time staying awake myself, as the jetlag mentioned by Kazikli early that morning had caught up with me. But I had so many concerns and worries prodding my mind that I doubted I’d sleep long.

“Are you sure there’s no safe way for us to stop in Richmond to…to see my parents and…and my Grandma Terese?”

That was worry ‘number one’ for me, although I could barely keep my thoughts straight to coherently voice my request.

“As I mentioned earlier, Ralu’s forces attacked the airports in Kathmandu and Frankfurt last night, and will undoubtedly hit Nashville’s airport at dusk—merely on the off chance of catching you,” he said, his tone compassionate and soothing. “If he never slept in the day, Ralu would have captured you already. Sadly, I think his warriors will visit Richmond at any moment, if they are not there already.”

I suddenly pictured my momma and papa, as well as my brothers and grandmother dead—eaten by fiends like the ones I encountered in Knoxville last year. I started to cry.

“There, there, Txema…your loved ones will be all right as long as we continue on our journey to Paris tonight,” he said, placing his arms around my waist from behind. His strength enveloped me, and I felt as if I could melt into those arms. “Ralu will soon follow us there, I’m sure. We’ll arrive shortly after ten o’clock tomorrow morning with another full day of travel ahead of us, and to a destination he’ll never find. You need as much rest tonight as you can get…so have no worries, my love.”

I turned around to face him, looking into his blazing blue eyes that were heated only by human passion…albeit passion with two thousand years of experience. I brought my lips up to his and closed my eyes, ready for him to take me fully. He caressed my lips with his, but then pulled away when my pulse began to race.

“Not yet, my love,” he whispered. “You need your rest. There will be plenty of opportunities for us to make up for lost time.”

I groaned in disappointment, but reluctantly allowed him to walk me over to the bed. He helped unfasten the top back button to my blouse, and after I slid out of my clothes I climbed under the covers. As he finished pulling a blanket up to my chest, I reached back and pulled his face close to mine.

“Don’t sleep over there…stay with me,” I whispered. “Please.”

He didn’t verbally respond, but pulled away. I heard his soft footsteps and then the overhead light dimmed, and I thought for sure he was going to leave my daughter and I in the bedroom alone. But, then I heard more footsteps and the sound of him undressing…and soon him pulling the covers back while he climbed into bed with me.