VAMP Page 2

  As for me, nobody knows. Half-vampires, born to a human and a vampire, are extremely rare. The few Anna remembers aged normally like a human to maturity when the process slowed to a near standstill, just like my mother and father. Once I reach maturity, however, all bets are off. I may not be an elder pure-blood like Anna, but since I’m the “moon child,” that may not make any difference.

  Who knows, maybe I’ll start ageing backwards, like that film, or turn into a python and slither off into obscurity or something.

  “Thank you, Papa.” I take the final step onto the marble floor, bowing in a small curtsy the crystals on my shoes catching the light as I lift the hem of my dress and they cast stars around the room. “The dress is beautiful. As always, your taste is impeccable and your choice more perfect than I could have found for myself. Thank you.”

  “You are welcome, my angel.” He steps forward, places his hand on the side of my head, and kisses the part in my hair before straightening his ruby and diamond cuff links, which are a perfect match for the teardrop earrings I’m wearing tonight. “Only the best for my girls.”

  I can’t help but smile. I love when he calls my mother and me his girls. He dotes on us. Spoils us and it brings him joy to see us happy. He loves my mother; I see it flow between them even as I suffocate any idea that I will have anything similar in my lifetime. No matter how long that may be.

  I glance around, scanning for any sign or scent of Mama. It’s unusual for me to be ready before my mother. My relationship to time is fluid, and I often become lost in my own mind, in my own world. Like Anna, a minute can seem like an eternity to me while hours feel like split seconds.

  “Where’s Mama?” As I glance down the hall, I see the painting hanging. “Oh, it came!” I brush past him wanting a closer look. “Somehow it looks more wonderful than it did in the photograph.”

  “Well, naturally.” I can hear the smile in my father’s voice. “No photograph could do it justice. Your mother was just as thrilled when the delivery van arrived earlier, but we didn’t want to disturb you. She’s almost ready, to answer your other question.”

  “Just look at the detail...”

  The painting is from the Picasso’s Blue Period, a piece not seen on the open market since it was painted in 1903. My father bought it for my mother’s birthday—the day of her human birth—last month on a trip to New York. It was since cleaned, packaged and shipped via an armored, guarded transport.

  “I see you noticed our new addition.”

  I turn to see my mother emerge from the hallway to their master suite. Her emerald-green gown trimmed with gold is a perfect match for her unnatural eyes.

  White silk gloves extend above her elbows as she holds out her own diamond and ruby necklace to my father. He takes it from her as she spins, holding up her blonde hair for him to secure the million dollars’ worth of gems around her delicate neck.

  She’s beautiful. Classic and poised. We share many similarities, our hair for one. We are often mistaken for sisters, of course, when we are out in the world, and we’ve taken to simply nodding in agreement instead of trying to explain how she could possibly be my mother.

  She turns, hands on her hips, giving us both an appreciative smile. “Well, if we are not the best-looking family out there tonight, you can butter my butt and call me a biscuit.”

  Papa and I give each other a glance and chuckle at one of her classic euphemisms, my mother’s voice and stance hinting more than usual at her Savannah roots. It’s where they met and conceived me twenty-one years ago, when my mother was still human. Most people wouldn’t believe that vampires take vacations at all, let alone to the Georgia coast, and the truth is some can’t. But my father has an unusual tolerance for sunlight and a love of the ocean.

  “You are as stunning as the day we met.” My father takes her hand kissing the back.

  “Like yesterday.” Mama gets that wistful look in her eyes whenever she talks about how they met. “I still wonder, in that split second it took you to decide whether or not to save me, or kill me.”

  My father leans in to kiss her cheek. I’ve heard the story a hundred times but the joy in their eyes when they wander back in time makes it tolerable.

  “You are here, I am here. So, clearly saving you was the decision.”

  “Yes my love. It was difficult, I’m sure. A naïve young southern girl, lying there bleeding in the back alley, two heathens standing over me ready to have their way...”

  “It was the fight I saw in your eyes.” Papa looks at me. “They underestimated the sweet girl taking the short cut behind the local tavern.”

  “My Daddy didn’t raise a coward.” Mama looks at my father like it’s the first time. “When they threw me down in that alley and I landed on the broken bottle, I knew if I was shedding blood, so were they.” She smiles then looks at me. “I just never expected what happened next.”

  “The scent of your blood was the sweetest perfume. The taste of their blood, the sweetest revenge.”

  “Oh Rudolf. You’re such a romantic.”

  “We’re going to be late.” I gently ease the conversation back to reality.

  “Well, ladies.” My father holds out his hands to us. “Shall we?”

  My mother and I reply in unison. “We shall.”

  As we approach the front door, it swings back, opened by my father’s telepathic power, and we exit into the crisp late October air where the Bentley is waiting, engine running. As the door quietly clicks shut behind us, the scent of the man across the street hits me hard, and I suddenly find it difficult to catch my next breath.

  “Are you alright, dear?” My mother’s face tightens with concern. “You don’t look a hundred percent.”

  I shake my head and force a smile. “I’m fine.”

  “Well, you’ll be sure to let us know if you’re not?”

  I nod as my father stands next to the passenger door and opens it with a glance. He seats my mother, again closing the door with a quick look, then helps me into the back before settling behind the wheel himself and easing the nearly soundproof sedan down the long drive to the gate. His hands adjust his tie as he controls the car with his mind.

  My mother gives him a disapproving look, and with a smile he places his hands on the wheel, taking a more human approach to driving.

  “Oh!” My mother turns to me then back to my father, the moonlight catching on her pale skin, turning it opalescent. “I had a courier take an invitation to our new neighbor yesterday. He RSVP’d a couple hours ago.”

  My heart skips at the mention of him, my senses seeking out his scent or the sound of his heartbeat as we pass his drive. Part of me wants to jump out of the car, hunt him down and do...things I’ve never imagined until recently. The other part of me, the sensible part, knows that’s just the hormones and I would be putting all of us in jeopardy if I did.

  “Wonderful.” My father sounds delighted. If he knew what was going through my mind right now, he’d turn the car around and lock me in my room for the next five days. “Always best to keep up appearances with the neighbors. I’m happy to see someone living in the house again. It’s been vacant so many years.”

  “What did he say? Is he coming?”

  I try to hide the hint of desperation in my voice but fail, and the tone draws a sidelong glance from my father, along with a perfectly arched raised eyebrow from my mother. If he’s there, perhaps I’ll be able to control myself in the presence of my parents. That’s my hope. But God help me if we’re ever left alone.

  “Well, dear, he said yes. I look forward to meeting him. His name is Maxim Forsythe.” She smiles at me, then at my father. “He might be one of us with a name like that...”

  The vibration from his name, along with a hit of his scent as we accelerate down the road, makes my cheeks burn, and I draw a deep breath, trying to steady the heat coursing through my body and gathering between my legs. The scent is fainter tonight than it has been, and I wonder if he’s already left for the party an
d what I’m picking up is simply his trail, but it doesn’t much matter. Either way, I’m struggling under the weight of it all.

  “Seleme.” My father looks into the rear-view mirror at me, his eyes a deep gold flecked with red. “Are you all right?”

  I fist the edge of the seat, trying to force some calm into my voice as I answer. “Yes. What is it, Papa?” The last thing I need is for him to worry about me more than he does already.

  He swallows, and my mother reaches over, laying her hand on his shoulder and squeezing. “Let it go, dear.”

  “What is it?” I ask again, looking from one to the other.

  My father’s brow draws tight in the rear-view mirror as he continues. “There was another dead dove on the front doorstep this morning. I want you to curtail your evening runs outside the grounds.” He continues before I can object: “Just until we find out what’s going on, or we get past midnight on your birthday. I want you to take a leave of absence from the office, as well. I want you to stay in the house. After Friday, we will see, but until then we need to keep you safe.”

  “No, absolutely not.” We’ve had this conversation several times in the last week, and I’m not about to back down now. “I will not be intimidated by some cryptic, centuries-old voodoo. I am fully capable of taking care of myself. And it could be coincidence. Maybe they are flying into the front door.” I look at my mother, who responds with a condescending sigh. “It’s possible! There was this story the other day, hundreds of birds flew into a wall in Charlotte at the NASCAR Hall of Fame. They showed it on the news. They just kept flying into the wall and dying. You never know.”

  “Seleme.” My father’s voice deepens. “Indulge me. It’s just a few more days.”

  “No. I have a deposition for the Whitehall negligent homicide pro-bono case to prepare, and I’m still putting together the appeal for Carolyn Gordon vs. the City of Flint. I’m the youngest attorney to ever present in front of the state supreme court, and I will not be less than one hundred-percent prepared. I will not put my own personal issues before my obligations. Whatever happens to me on Friday is going to happen with or without my help, and I intend to spend every day until then being me.”

  I see his jaw set firm in the mirror, but we can both be equally stubborn, and I don’t intend to relent on this one.

  I might have lived a sheltered life in the mansion for most of my twenty-one years, but that didn’t stop me getting my degree by the time I was seventeen, my JD by nineteen and becoming the youngest person ever to pass the bar in Michigan.

  Sure, it’s easier to study when you only sleep an hour a night. And my ability to process information, like my senses, is preternaturally keen. But I still had to put in the effort.

  “Okay, you two. You sound like a couple of ol' coonhounds fighting over the same squirrel.” My mother glances between us. “We will figure this out. But for tonight, button it up. All the children and families look forward to this every year, and it is up to us to make them feel welcome and important. As they are. Let’s focus on the festivities. There is plenty of security at the venue for tonight, and we will leave directly from there and come home. So, for now...” She pauses, leaning over to kiss my father’s cheek before turning to me. “We will put a pin in it, okay?”

  We both groan but nod, taking our sparring gloves off for now. After all, no direct threats have been made. No attempts to harm me have been made so it’s all just nervous speculation.

  My father clears his throat as he takes a left onto Lake Shore Boulevard toward the old Israndia Estate where the evening’s party is to be held. He bought the place back in the twenties, when he first came to the US, but has allowed it to be used as a venue for community and charity events after the construction of the current estate where I grew up was complete.

  “Do you have your pumpkin planned?” He raises his eyebrows as he watches me in the mirror, and his cheeks rise with a half-smile.

  “Of course she does.” My mother’s soothing Southern drawl calms us all. “Seleme always has a plan, don’t you, dear?” Her golden green eyes twinkle as she looks at me, and I nod.

  “For pumpkins at least,” I say with a shrug.

  The Halloween party and pumpkin carving contest has been a tradition for at least as long as I've been alive. My father’s law firm sponsors it, inviting local business people, celebrities and friends of the family, but they aren’t the focus of the party.

  That’s the children. They’re brought in from homeless shelters and foster care, along with chronically ill or terminally ill kids from local public hospitals.

  We provide the transportation, wicked Halloween swag bags, candy, pumpkin carving, games... The old estate is transformed into a haunted Halloween funhouse for just one night, and I’ve been the star of the pumpkin contest since I was seven and my parents first allowed me to wield the knife myself.

  I don't do it for the press, who always attend in droves. For me it’s all about the kids. When the pumpkins are auctioned off at the end of the party, I want to make sure mine raises some serious funds for the Eastern Michigan Food Bank as well as Children’s Hospital of Detroit.

  It’s ironic, but we never dress in costume choosing instead a formal, elegant approach to the evening which I feel sets us apart in a different way. If only the world knew we are truly monster’s in our own right simply dressed up and packaged as pillars of the community.

  As Papa accelerates past another car, the headlights from oncoming traffic make me squint, and I wonder for a moment if this is what it’s going to be like for me. My sensitivity to light has been more acute lately, and I worry that perhaps after Friday I’ll no longer be able to go out in direct sunlight, instead finding myself entombed in candlelit halls during the daylight hours like the Messinas.

  There are so many unknowns.

  “Ah, I do love this old place,” my mother remarks as we pull down the drive to the Israndia Estate. “Reminds me of the old grand plantations back home.”

  My father smiles at her reminiscence as he circles the ornate marble fountain that dominates the drive, and a valet dressed as a classic, tuxedoed vampire, marches up to the side of the Bentley making us all smile.

  A few minutes later, we ascend the steps hand in hand, people-watching and whispering as guests mill about in the great hall beyond the open doors.

  Two

  Maxim

  WHAT THE FUCK AM I doing here?

  I take a sip of champagne as five little kids run by, chased by a playful Frankenstein that could have stepped right out of the original black-and-white movie I remember watching when I was their age.

  Seriously, I have no idea how much that costume alone must have cost—and I suspect whoever is inside is a professional entertainer, too—but my new neighbors must have spent a fortune on tonight’s event.

  When the courier dropped off my invitation, complete with a wax-sealed white envelope presented on a silver tray, I figured it would be your typical fake cobwebs and smoke machines. Maybe a soundtrack of howling and ghostly moaning playing on repeat while a strobe light made my head hurt.

  Man, was I wrong.

  This is the real deal. There’s nearly a thousand people here but that’s not what’s so impressive.

  The whole estate has been transformed into something straight out of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and the costumes on the staff working everything from the bar to the candy buffet are as real as I’ve ever seen. I keep half-expecting Bela Lugosi to come stalking down from the bedrooms or the Wolfman to snarl from the shadows. Special effects, make-up artists, costumes, prizes for the kids...we must be looking at close to a million, easy.

  And it’s pretty clear that it’s all for the kids. The adults here, and there are plenty of them, are at best a secondary concern.

  Seriously, if it wasn’t for the possibility she will be here sometime this evening, I’d leave right now.

  I run my hand over my mouth on a sniff and try to calm the errant twitches in my dick at the mer
e thought of her. There’s a room full of kids that do not need to be terrified by my misbehaving hard-on.

  The girl I’ve watched run by my house every night for the past two weeks has me thinking thoughts I never imagined I’d have. She’s occupied my every waking moment and taken center stage in every dream since I first caught a glimpse of her in the moonlight with that fucking cat on a leash.

  A cat.

  On a leash.

  Running next to her.

  But somehow it’s the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen. It’s turned me into an obsessed lunatic, and there are still moments when I can’t be sure I know what the fuck is going on with me.

  But my dick seems to know. And I gotta say, I’m trusting his judgment on this one because neither of us has ever had this reaction to a woman before, and I’m on the edge of losing my mind trying to figure out what the hell is going on.

  “Hey.” Dimitri, one of my few friends, sidesteps next to me. Unlike my sorry ass, he seems to be comfortable enough dressed in a tux and attending a charity function in a social tier a bit above my former paygrade. I guess he’s adjusted to civilian life better than I have, but he’s had longer to get used to it. “I gotta say, when you invited me to come, I never expected this.”

  He eyes the crowd, running his tongue over his teeth. The invitation said plus one, but I don’t have a plus one in my life. Never have. So, when Dimitri came by to talk to me about a business proposition, he saw the invitation on my desk and pretty much invited himself along. Turns out, the security company he owns has worked with my neighbors’ law firm before, and he thought it would be a good opportunity to rub elbows.

  “You mean when you invited yourself.”

  He chuckles as he turns to the bar tended by a group of blue aliens, complete with moving antennae, and raises his hand to indicate he needs a refill. “I bet you’re enjoying this, right? How many times have you watched that old Dracula movie? Or Frankenstein. The black and white one. You’re a horror fanatic.” He swivels his head around, taking in the theatre of it all.