Bloodstone Heart (27 page)

"Marlene? Hi, it's Anton Larsen..."

...

"Uuh, no.
 
That's not why I'm calling. I'm...we... I mean, Ms. D'Angelo and myself are trapped in the elevator between floors eleven and twelve."

...

"No, no. We are fine, but the emergency phone in here isn't working so could you please let maintenance know that there are passengers stuck in here?
 

...

"Thank you Marlene, I appreciate that."

...

"Good then. Goodbye."

"Well?" Ms. D'Angelo snarled at Anton.

"Well, what? We wait," Anton retorted.

She sighed deeply - a most agitated sigh, directed at Anton as if this was his fault. She backed into the corner of the elevator (her shoes squishing with every step), set her attaché down, and crossed her arms over her chest as she stared at the back of Anton.
 

Anton glanced over his shoulder to find her glaring at him, which made him do a double take. He turned towards her and backed himself into the corner diagonally from her to be as far away from her as possible.
 
Like two sparring boxers, they eyed each other as if sizing up their competition. He set his briefcase down and laid his overcoat atop it.
 

Ms. D’Angelo never took her eyes off of him.
 
Anton was starting to feel self-conscious and loosened his tie. He hoped he wouldn't be in the elevator for too long with this hostile woman. In an attempt to break the ice, Anton asked, "So, what part of Great Britain are you from?"

Completely caught off guard, she stuttered a few times then in a heavy accent said, "You are bang out of order. What’s that got to do with the price of eggs?"

Stuttering himself now, he replied, "Well, quite frankly, I don't know, but we are stuck in an elevator with nothing to do, I just thought maybe you might loosen up if we talked about you."

"Pardon me? Loosen up? I have no intention of loosening up with YOU. I certainly don't want to share my personal information with a complete stranger and most especially with you."

"I see. Fine," Anton said matter-of-factly. Silence consumed the elevator aside from the easy listening music droning on from the tiny speaker in the ceiling.
 
If he didn't care about revealing that he was a vampire, he would have jumped up and through the escape hatch in the top of the car and agilely climbed out of this predicament, but he certainly wasn't going to do anything in front of this hostile woman.

After several minutes of shifting her weight from one squishy shoe to the next and sighing like a teenage girl, Anton said, "Why don't you just take your wet shoes off? They can't be comfortable squishing every time you move. Besides, I'm getting tired of hearing them squish every time you tap your foot or shift your weight."

If she had looked angry before, then she looked furious now. With this amplified anger, her British accent was even more pronounced as she said, "It's your own bloody fault."

"What is? Your shoes? Are you insane? How am I at fault for making your shoes wet? I don't control the rain or where you step. What is YOUR problem anyway? Are you always this hostile?"

Now she was fuming.
 
He thought flames might shoot out of her tiny nose and he had to admit, he was a little scared given their close proximity. She came at him like a bullet - an inhumanly fast bullet, that is. Her small hand at his neck, nails digging in near the collar of his perfectly starched, tailored dress shirt, she had him pinned in his corner of the elevator. He was shocked more than hurt and he smiled as his face turned a bright shade of red from the pressure of her hand.
 

“I'd say you just revealed some personal information, Ms. D'Angelo. I take it you're a vampire?”

Slightly embarrassed, she relaxed her hand and pulled away from Anton, retreating back to her corner of the elevator.
 

Anton rubbed his neck slightly as he smirked.
 

"What of it?” she spat out. “You're a vampire too. What does it matter if you know?"

"It doesn't. Not in the least," he said snidely.
 

Her arms were again crossed over her chest and she stood there silently stewing. When she shifted her weight and her shoe squished again, one of Anton's eyebrows went up as he looked at her and then her shoes.

"Fine.
 
I'll take them off," she said angrily and kicked them off nearly hitting him from across the elevator.

"Are you ever going to tell me why you seem to be so angry with me?" he asked.

"As if you didn't know."

"I don't know. Seriously."

She looked rather surprised. "You don't recognize me?"

"What do you mean? You are Juliana D'Angelo. You work for ..."

"No, no. Bloody git. I had to walk three blocks in the rain because of you."

"What are you blathering about? How am I responsible for that?"

"You took my parking place? Remember now? Black Lexus with blinker on, waiting for the parking place you zipped into? Ring any bleedin’ bells?"

"That's what all this is about? A stupid parking place?"

Mockingly she repeated, "That's what this is about? A stupid parking place?" Then she continued loudly, "You're bloody right, that's what this is about! What kind of person takes a parking place that is being waited for, only to shrug them off?" Then she started to mumble to herself with a few loud
bloody’s
and a few
morons
thrown in here and there along with a bunch of British expressions he wasn’t familiar with.
 

"Wow. You are wound up awful tight to have a parking place ruin your day, lady."

"Don't 'lady' me, you, you...what kind of gentleman does that?"

"You're kidding, right? This is some kind of joke, right? Is this 'Candid Camera' or something? You can't seriously be that angry about a parking place."

"You are a moron. A bloody moron.
 
I had to walk three blocks in the pouring rain to a meeting only to find that YOU were the one giving the meeting. I had to dry my clothes and hair in the bathroom with that hand blower drying machine."

"Oooooh. Then you were the very rude drowned rat that I held the door open for in the coffee shop that didn't even bother to thank me. As if I was working there only to open the door for wet princesses who couldn't be bothered."

"How dare you! Why would I say thank you to someone who took my parking place?"

"Well first off, your name was nowhere on that parking place, so I am quite sure it was not yours. Secondly, I didn't even see you until you honked with disapproval, and I wasn't going to get back into my car, just to give you the PUBLIC parking place I was parked in.
 
And lastly, you didn't know I was the 'parking place stealer' when you went walking through the door of the coffee shop, because you never even made eye contact with me until you overheard my comment with your vampire hearing."

"Ahh, whaaa, I, well...but..." She stood there with her mouth open for a minute as Anton gave her a ‘gotcha’ look.

"Okay, maaaaybeeee I didn't thank you for holding the door open for me, but that is still no comparison to what you did to me."

"Really? Are you saying that you NEVER have taken a parking place that someone else might have been waiting for? Maybe you didn't even know until it was too late?"

"Well...um...I....hmm, maybe..."

"Look. I had no idea there wouldn't be another parking place for three blocks. How could I? If I had known, I probably would have given you the parking place. What's done is done. The best I can do now is say I'm sorry and," he bent down and picked up his compact umbrella from the pocket of his briefcase, "give you a peace offering."

He smiled as he stepped forward to hand it to her, which she reluctantly took from him. She tapped it on her other hand as she started to smile and said to Anton, "I suppose most of this could have been avoided if I had just brought one of these myself."
 

He smiled smugly, but didn't say a word. After a minute he said, "Well, I suppose I could have been a little more observant when parking, especially in the rain."

This time she smiled smugly then tapped the umbrella in her hand again and looked up at him. He was surprised at how amazing she looked now that there was no animosity towards him. Her eyes weren't the blue of a ferocious turbulent sea, but the warm soothing blue of the sky at twilight. The lines of her face were softer too, now, making her look absolutely lovely even in the harsh fluorescent lighting of the elevator car. He flushed and looked down at his shoes.

"So maybe we should start over?" She held out her hand and continued, "Hello, I'm Juliana D'Angelo, but my friends call me Jules. It's very nice to meet you, Anton Larsen."

He took her hand lightly and said, "Likewise, Jules. It suits you, you know? Jules. That is, your eyes being the color of sapphires and all." He felt immediately awkward at saying something so corny, but she smiled coyly.
 

"Dorchester,” she said. “You asked where I'm originally from - Dorchester."

"Oh. Dorchester. That's about as south as you can go."

"Yes, quite."

"How did you end up in the colonies?" he joked.

"Quite literally," she said. "I came over in the late 1600s."

"A cougar, then."

"Hardly. Older yes, but I wouldn't categorize myself as a cougar."

"I was joking, you know?"

"Yes, I know."

"It's odd though, I didn't sense you as being a vampire."

"Hmm. Age I suppose. The need to feed lessens as does our scent."

"Making you much more lethal, I suppose."

She chuckled. "Mmm, yes. I suppose that's true."

"Have any family nearby?"

"No. My family is long since gone - being a made vampire…"

"Really? I don't think I've ever met a made vampire your age. You must have had a very good teacher."

"No, actually. I learned everything on my own," she said this matter-of-factly, but Anton sensed a deep loneliness that he thought he could also see in her eyes.

"I'm impressed."

"Don't be. Anyone can do it."

"No. Actually not just anyone, and most especially a woman from the 1600s.”

She started to bristle, but before she could say anything, Anton said, "Truly. That is not an insult. It is a great compliment.
 
Women were treated as property back then, especially in Europe. You couldn't own land, you couldn't travel alone, and most felt that women were only for breeding. Add on the witch trials, the superstitions, and being alone, it must have been very hard. Is that why you came to America?"

"You know your history. I stayed for a while watching out for my family and to wait for...well, that's not important, but when my family was gone, it got harder and harder to stay on the outskirts of town and survive, so I came to America where things were new and always changing. They still had their criteria for what women could do or not do, but it was much less formal and the farther west I traveled the better.
 
After a while things changed and it became easier for a lone woman to move around without being noticed."

"But who taught you the vampire ways? How to control your hunger and all the rest? Didn't your maker stay to tell you anything?"

She laughed bitterly, "Hardly. Truly though, it's only common sense. If you kill people to survive, you are going to eventually have a trail that leads to your door, so take a little and walk away."

"But newly made vampires can't control the hunger; they can't pull away when feeding."

"Well, I know for a fact they can. I'm living proof, or non-living proof depending on how you look at things."

"You are the exception then - don't you realize? I'd bet 98% couldn’t."

"Really? Hmm.
 
How do you know so much about made vampires? You yourself are a born vampire, am I right?"

"Yes. My father is a historian of sorts on the subject of vampires, both made and born.
 
He just can't seem to get enough information. It's almost an obsession with him.
 
Anyway, when you grow up with that kind of person, you tend to learn a thing or two. I can tell you this though, if my father could get you alone for an evening, he'd be the happiest vampire on the planet listening to all you have seen and experienced. Our family, supposedly, goes back all the way to the Ancient Ones. Have you heard of them?"

"Only in passing - folktales really."

By now they were both sitting on the floor of the elevator in their opposite corners. They talked for an hour or more, getting to know one another.
 
The elevator made a jerk again and a loud noise came from outside the door.
 
Anton and Jules both stood up as the doors slowly opened slightly above the floor.
 

The man above them opening the doors was in navy trousers and a striped shirt that stated his name was "Robert" in red on a patch over the left of his chest.
 
Above the doors he had inserted a strange object into a slot which controlled the doors like a key might.
 
Anton put his briefcase and overcoat on the floor of the building along with Jules'. Holding out his hands to Jules he said, "Allow me?” She smiled and nodded as he put his hands to her waist and effortlessly lifted her until she could sit on the floor between the doors where the man named Robert helped her to a standing position.
 

Soon, Anton was also out and standing beside her. He held his hand out to shake Robert’s. "Thank you for rescuing us."

Robert shook his hand and replied, "Not at all. The real thanks goes to my wife Kimberly.
 
I left my pager at home this morning. When she received your page, she hunted me down to relay the message."

Anton smiled and said, "Well, please thank Kimberly for us too." A man that could only be the building manager was scrambling down the hallway, arms flailing and making all kinds of apologies to Anton and Jules as they grabbed their items off the floor.