Vicious (9 page)

“I can’t explain that to you either.”

“What can you explain?”

“Just that we were made, and we escaped. Now a group of us live here in New Orleans. Lea was one of us when we escaped, but she went down her own path.”

“So all the legends and myths, are they true?” I asked dumbfounded.

I think a piece of beignet fell from my lips and onto my lap as I spoke.

“Like what?”

“Like you can’t die? Or are you already dead?”

“I assure you that I can die. Although we heal exceptionally fast. And no, I’m not dead. My heart beats just like yours, but it beats at a much slower pace.”

“What about sunlight?”

“What about it?”

“Does it burn you alive or melt you or something like that?”

“We can go out in sunlight, but we prefer not to. Our eyes are adapted to seeing at night better.”

“What about a stake in the heart?”

“It would hurt a lot, and it may kill us depending on how deep and how long it was in there. None of us have ever had that happen that I know of.”

“What about holy water or crosses or garlic?”

“Nonsense,” she responded as she snickered a little at the idea.

“What about drinking human blood?”

She paused. “I think you know from last night that that one is regrettably true.”

“But you said you don’t do that anymore.”

“Yes. I have learned to find my sustenance in other ways. I no longer kill human beings for food.”

“What do you do for food?”

“That is…private and…gross. Let’s skip that one.”

“But you did kill humans at one time?”

“Regrettably, yes.”

A shiver ran down my spine like a squirmy, cold lizard, and I took another bite of a beignet to try to mask the affect her words had on me. How could this all be possible? This had to be a joke. This couldn’t all be real. I must be drunk. Maybe she slipped me something last night?

“How do I know this isn’t some sick joke?”

“You know what you saw last night. Feel your neck. Does that feel real enough for you?”

I touched my neck and felt the pain run through my sore throat.

“Reality hurts,” I said with a wince.

She smiled and sat at the edge of the bed again.

“Why did you help me? Why do you continue to help me?”

“Because it was my fault that you got in this mess in the first place. If Lea hadn’t thought that I was with you, she wouldn’t have attacked you.”

“I still don’t understand. She thought I was with you? What did she think that we were going to do?”

I blushed suddenly as I realized the sexual innuendo I had inadvertently made. Anna stood up and faced away from me and towards the curtain. I could see from her shoulders she was tense. Was it possible to embarrass a vampire?

“Something happened to a boy recently, and she thought I was looking to do that same thing to you.”

“What happened?”

She didn’t answer. She remained silent, and I decided to not press the question even though I desperately wanted to know what had happened to this boy and if the same thing might happen to me. It seemed to be a really sore subject for her.

Instead, I took the opportunity to gulp down some orange juice and put my clothes back on while Anna’s back was turned. As I slipped my pants on, the realization that Anna had undressed me last night hit me like someone sucker punching me hard in the face. I instantly blushed all over. Thankfully, she respected my silent need for privacy and did not turn around to see my sudden shame.

She stayed quiet and stoic with her back to me even after I had dressed completely and downed the rest of the orange juice. I walked over to the window where she stood. I thought that maybe if I let some light in, it would perk up our moods a little, and conversation would once again flow. However, when I pulled back the blackout curtains, I let in more light than I was expecting, and the mid-morning sun poured into room. Anna sprang backwards and hissed violently while she covered her eyes in pain.

“Close those now!”

I jumped in shock and did as I was told.

“I’m so sorry, Anna. Are you okay?”

She was crouching defensively and rubbing her watery eyes. When she pulled her hands away, I saw her eyes were black like they had been last night when she’d fought with Lea. I stepped back out of fear, but as soon as her eyes adjusted to the room again, they quickly turned back into the shocking blue and purple.

“I’m all right. Just don’t do that again.”

“I thought you said you can do sunlight.”

“We can, but our eyes are overly sensitive to the sun. If we stare off into sunlight too long, we’ll go blind. It’s excruciatingly painful for us.”

“Why do your eyes turn black like that?”

“It happens when we are thirsty or angry. It’s an instant response to a defensive situation or when we need to feed.”

The last line made me shudder, but I again tried to hide it from her.

“I’m sorry again about the curtain.”

“It’s all right. Do you have any more questions, or are you satisfied?”

I thought for a moment, and I knew the question I had come up with was one that might get me in trouble, but hey, when would I ever get another opportunity?

“Were you ever a normal person before this?”

She stopped rubbing her eyes and looked at me in shock as if no one had asked her that question before. Maybe they hadn’t.

“I…I think so.”

“You don’t know?”

“We don’t remember much of anything. I was one of the fortunate ones who remembered my name. I figured that if I had a name, then I had to be a normal person once. Plus, I have one memory, but I don’t know what it means.”

“What is it?”

“A swing.”

“A swing?”

“I remember swinging on a rope swing with little flowers painted on it.”

Silence took over the room with icy fingers. I thought about how something as insignificant as a rope swing could become so incredibly significant given the right circumstances.

“So you were human once.”

“It seems so. They changed us later and took away our memories of our previous lives.”

“Who are they?”

“I can’t tell you anymore about that. I’ve already told you too much.”

She pulled away from me, walked over to the end table and dropped a large, clunky key onto its wooden surface. It was an actual metal key shaped like one of those turn-of-the-century keys you saw in old movies as opposed to the plastic hotel card keys that you normally got.

“You have until noon to leave before housekeeping will come up and kick you out. Like I said before, the room is covered. Be very careful leaving here, and be watchful all around you. And remember, not a word of this to anyone. Just tell your friends we spent the night together.”

“You’re leaving?”

“I have to get home.”

“Will I ever see you again?”

That last line sounded more desperate than I had intended, and she cocked her head when she looked at me like a dog might if he were studying something that he didn’t understand, like the noises from a computer or a television set.

“Last night you were wondering if I was going to kill you, and now you want to see me again? It’s definitely been a while since I was human, because sometimes you people don’t make any sense to me.”

She had left and shut the door before I could say anything. She never did answer my question, but maybe that last comment was her way of avoiding it. She obviously cared something for me if she saved my life and took care of me the way she did.

I looked over and saw her scarf still sprawled across the armchair, and I opened my mouth to call her name. Nothing came out, and I knew she was probably long gone by now. I picked up my remaining items around the room. Instinctively, I checked that my credit cards and cash were still accounted for, and immediately scolded myself when I saw they hadn’t been touched. I went to the bathroom and checked my appearance in the mirror to discover a better looking Grant than the one that had stared back at me last night in the bar’s bathroom.

The color had returned to my cheeks, and after combing my hair and replacing my bandage, I was looking fit for the world again. The bandage could be explained with an exaggerated story about a rough and kinky night with the hot blond as opposed to getting attacked by a vampire in a back alley.

I walked out into the room and double checked I had everything. I grabbed her scarf, stuffed it into my pocket and I lifted the old-fashioned key she had left from the end table. The hotel probably figured no one would run off with or lose a key that weighed a ton.

I left the room and walked down the first set of stairs I saw. These dumped me out into a nicely decorated but small lobby area equipped with fainting couches and an ornate chandelier that looked impressive even to me. I was greeted by a friendly woman behind the desk with pale skin and shockingly red hair. When she smiled at me, she flashed her slightly elongated canines, catching me off-guard. They were not nearly as long or scary as Lea’s had been. Was she a vampire too? I cautiously placed the key on the large, ornate French desk in front of her, and when she saw the room number, she winked at me slyly. What was this place?

“Thank you, sir. The room has been taken care of. Have a nice day.”

“Thank you.”

I spoke uneasily and gawked at her like a moron, but she continued to grin as though she knew a secret of mine. Didn’t Anna say something last night about these people knowing her or owing her? I looked into the eyes of the hostess one more time and didn’t see even a hint of what I saw in Anna or Lea’s eyes. The strange intensity and contrast that was vivid and unmistakable in theirs was just not in this woman’s.

I concluded she must be one of those people who got their teeth altered by a dentist to play out the vampire fantasy. I had seen something about them on TV, and there were a lot of these vampire wannabes in New Orleans.

I left still feeling uneasy, but the bright sun blinded me and made me focus on trying to find my sunglasses instead. I realized with dread that I had left them in the hotel room with Eric, not thinking I would be staying the night anywhere else. Well, I would have to find my way back without them. I used my hand like a visor and began retracing the steps Anna and I took last night, the ones I could remember anyway.

I was in unfamiliar territory, and it seemed mainly locals lived around here. I remembered Anna’s warning and tried to be vigilant in watching for suspicious people, but mainly I just looked out for Lea.

The open air left me feeling very exposed and unprotected without Anna around, and the unease began to make me paranoid. Everything smelled sharp. I almost attacked a little old woman with a shopping cart who startled me coming around a corner. She yelled at me in what sounded like French, and I moved onward. I had the suspicion I was being watched, or maybe I was just imagining things, but it seemed like there was a pair of eyes following me all around. I tried to act confident in my path and walked quickly with my head held high, but I had never wanted to find a familiar-looking tourist-trap store so badly in my life. At least I would know if I was getting close.

The paranoia was getting worse, and I was getting very jumpy. Why hadn’t she stayed with me just a little while longer to get me back to my hotel? It’s funny that last night I wasn’t sure what she had planned for me, and now all I wanted was for her to show up and rescue me again. I was pathetic.

Just then, two small hands grabbed my shirt and yanked me hard into a narrow alley between two buildings. Thankfully, the sun was blocked by the high walls of the neighboring buildings. My eyes adjusted quickly to see a small blond with very dark sunglasses on clutching my shirt with her steely little hands.

“Anna!” I had never felt such relief.

“She is following you,” she said sternly.

“Who is?”

“Lea,” she stated as she pointed to the roof of one of the buildings across the street from our alley. I saw a quick flash of brown and purple, and then she was gone. I knew I’d felt someone watching me. Apparently, my paranoia was not unfounded.

“How did you know?”

“I was following you too.”

“You were what?”

“I was just making sure you got back all right,” she said, suddenly looking embarrassed as if I had caught her and she couldn’t hide. “I saw her tailing you and knew I had to intervene before she pulled you into her own alley.”

I shuddered at the thought of what would happen in Lea’s alley.

“Why was she following me? To finish off the job?”

“No. That would be too dangerous for her. She would never take the risk. There must be something else about you.”

She looked at me as though she was analyzing everything about me, but her calculations were not adding up.

“What is so special about me?”

“I don’t know, but I know someone who could tell us. Come on. You are coming with me. It’s obvious I cannot leave you alone right now.”