The Vampire Pirate's Daughter (17 page)

I feel the tension in Callum’s hand while he
holds onto my hand tightly.

We walk out of the room and then through the
large archways and high roofed cathedral rooms until we leave the
old medieval mansion. We walk into the pre-dawn and we swim back to
the beach where Peter parked the car.

Once we are standing on the beach, we turn
toward the ocean and when the sun peeks over the horizon, I feel
Callum shudder. I see Herman take a few steps backward and Justin
bring up his hand to shield his face.

I look at Callum when it dawns on him that
he is standing in full sunlight, when I know he can feel those
weird pinpricks of light on his skin, and when he can hear a
strange music in his ears. His face lights up and he looks at me
pleased. He leans down toward me and he scoops me up into his arms.
He holds me tightly to him and I feel the laughter bubble through
him and out of his mouth. I remember my first time and I know how
he feels, it is truly unbelievable.

The cynical laughter of the Four Judges
echo through the early morning sky toward us.

Later we all get into the car again and
sitting on Callum’s lap, I enjoy the new sights with him. I can
imagine his joy and total bliss, the multitude of colors you cannot
imagine even with an electric light, candle or gaslight. There is a
certain way the sunlight will filter through the leaves of a tree,
or glint off a blade of grass.

When we get home later that evening, because
we drove home at a more reasonable speed, we are all tired.

They go out to feed and Amanda admonishes
them to make sure they behave themselves.

I wait for them and when they get back the
next morning, Callum walks straight to me.

He is reluctant to go to sleep and
together we walk out into the sun.
He turns toward me. “I cannot believe how bright
everything is. Although you described it, I could never have
imagined how it would have looked.”

I smile. “Amazing, isn’t it?”

We spend the entire day outside. We walk hand
in hand along the river and we sit in the fields with the high
grass gently swaying in the breeze. Callum looks astonished up at
the sky and watches an eagle soar across the sky as if mesmerized.
We joke and talk and I know I will miss him when he goes.

That evening late, he kisses me softly,
fleetingly on my lips and then he goes down to the cellar. He will
be leaving the next day and he is leaving on his own.

I wait for Amanda to fall asleep and then
softly I get up from my couch. We still sleep in the lounge,
because we have not started fixing the upstairs. The floorboards
need restoration first, before we can even consider sleeping in the
rooms.

I walk through the house quietly toward the
kitchen and then into the cellar. I follow the arched passageway
toward the tunnel where he showed me he slept.

The tension in my stomach is overbearing as I
enter his tunnel and then softly I walk toward his bed.

Quietly, I slide in next to him. I put my
head on his arm, which he has wedged under his head and I put my
arm over his chest.

My fingers softly brush over his skin and I
hear him mumble softly. He turns over onto his side and I see him
smiling. He whispers, “Susanna.”

I smile shyly. I do not care if he thinks I
am a girl without any morals, but I am not going to wonder what it
could have been like. I know without a doubt that I want to be with
him for the rest of my eternal life.

He puts his arm over my waist and he
straightens out his arm under my head. He folds his arm around my
shoulders and then he pulls me closer into him. I find his lips and
I kiss him. I part my lips and then I taste him. I hear him groan
softly as he pulls me closer into him. I feel every inch of him
next to me.

He pulls his lips away from mine slowly and
hoarsely he whispers, “We should not go all the way. I want to
marry you, Susanna. I want to do it the way we are supposed to do
it, not just become partners or mates, but I want you to be my
wife. I want to stand in a church and declare to the world and to
God that I love only you. That I want to spend my everyday with
you.”

I laugh softly. “Do you even believe in
God?”

“I believe that there must be something
greater than us, although God probably does not want me.”

“How could God not want you?”

“I used to think God did not care about me,
because he let this happen to me, but then I met you and I realized
that if I was not like this I would probably never have met you. I
am sure He still does not want me though. Perhaps one day I could
develop a serum that would help us to digest normal food and we
could stop feeding on humans. Stop being murderers.”

“I think it has been tried. We are stuck with
drinking human blood.”

“So, Susanna?” He changes the morbid
subject.

“Yes?”

“Will you marry me in a church when I get
back?”

I laugh pleased. “Yes, I will marry you in a
church when you get back.”

“I won’t be gone long, I promise.”

“It’s okay. I understand why you have to go,
I honestly do, and I will wait right here for you.”

I move to get up, but he pulls me closer into
him. He nuzzles me in the neck. “I said we should not go all the
way, because of my conventional background, but there is no harm if
you just stayed here with me tonight, is there?”

Pleased I agree. He finds my lips and I sink
into him.

*

The next morning he leaves, but I know it
is not for long and I smile sadly while I wave goodbye to
him.

Edward, Justin, Peter, Herman and Claude
decide to stay and I hear them discussing how they are going to
start working on producing a wine that will be even more
extraordinary than the wine we drank at Mont-Saint-Michel and
produced by Francois. I hear Edward say it is a matter of principle
to better Francois, in the memory of William.

When I see the hills turn pink with wild
heather, I wonder if Callum is okay.

We have restored the château to its former
glory. Herman, Claude, Edward, Justin and Peter now sleep
upstairs.
They moved
from the cellars so that we can arrange the wooden barrels and get
the cellar organized for all the wine we are planning to
produce.

Amanda and I have our own wing. I also
insisted on a room for Callum. Justin and Peter share a room.

We leave the area where Callum had placed
the piano and chairs. It is a snug place for me to go and sit when
I missed Callum too much. I sit there and read his old books and
then I feel closer to him, because these must have been his
favorites.

Peter takes over the role as our person in
charge and Amanda relinquishes this role eagerly.

We have replanted the vines in the soil, and
the ‘vitis vinifera’ we chose is thriving in this climate and
ground. The first winter we prune the vineyards and we carefully
tend the vines. I enjoy the silence and the sun-drenched hills
dotted with the planted growing grapes. Amanda has adjusted well in
the circumstances and there are fewer and fewer mornings when I
notice her tired eyes or hear her soft agonizing moans in the
middle of the night.

At night, we gather in the large kitchen
around the bulky wooden table. I like the dungeon feel of the room.
We laugh and joke and we have really meshed well as a group. We get
along as if we have known each other forever.

*

It is already late summer and one night Peter
announces that he feels the sugar content of the grapes has reached
the correct level of sweetness to start picking. Our first wine is
going to be a table wine, so the sugar content needs to be lower
than that of a sweet wine, because table wines are usually
drier.

The grapes have to be cut from the vines by
hand. I work silently and the sun is blazing down on my head, even
though I have a bright scarf wrapped around my hair. I move my
basket along with my feet and when it is full, I carry it toward
the waiting wagon.

When I reach the wagon,
Edward smiles down at me, while he says,
“This is hard work.”

I laugh. “It sure is.”

“When Callum gets back he will be shocked
when he sees all that we have accomplished.”

“We sure will.”

I get another empty basket and looking over
my shoulder while I walk away, I say friendly, “Stop slacking. You
have to finish your section today.”

He sighs. “Peter is a real slave driver and I
preferred it when Amanda was in charge. She is moody, but not so
bossy.”

I walk away from him with Callum on my
mind. It has been so long, almost two years since he
left.

Night falls and I stay to finish my section.
Herman has driven the wagon away, but I will leave my baskets where
he will park the wagon again tomorrow.

They will not stop working tonight anyway,
because Claude and Justin have started crushing the grapes in a
huge cylindrical container that we bought. We did not want to make
the wine in the old-fashioned way of crushing the grapes by
treading on them barefoot. Once the grapes are crushed in the
container, the juice is run off into the vats and barrels for
fermentation. We are making a white wine, so we only need the
juice, whereas if we were making a red wine we would use the pulp,
juice and color-bearing skin.

It is such a beautiful night, the moon is
full and the sky is clear. The air feels crisp and as I walk back
toward the château, the river winks at me, inviting me to come in
for a dip. I look toward the house and decide to have a swim,
because when I get home I will be pulled into another chore. I feel
like floating on the river, maybe just drift with the flow and get
out when I have passed the village. I will enjoy the walk back.
Maybe I will have a good run to get the cobwebs cleared from my
mind. Callum has been on my mind constantly the last few days and I
wonder blissfully whether it is because he might be thinking about
me as well.

I walk into the river with my clothes on,
because I could not get out of the river on the other side of the
village and run naked through the fields. I smile amused at the
thought.

I drift toward the middle of the river, the
flow is slow and I look up at the moon as it follows me. The water
around me glimmers with the light and the stars reflect off the
water. I could imagine floating in the sky.

I am blissfully relaxed by the time I start
to see the lights from a few houses in the village and reluctantly
I swim toward the shore. I did not want to go past the village,
unwilling to venture too far away from home.

I wade onto the riverbank and then from the
corner of my eye I see two dark figures to the side of me.

The one shadow laughs sadistically. “We were
wund’rin when you’d come out o’ the river.”

I feel instant fear.

The other shadow agrees, “We thought we was
following ye to the North Sea, the way ye was driftin’ along.”

I turn to run and my clothes hang from me
heavily. A steel grip folds around my arm and pulls me backwards,
while a voice sneers close to my ear, “Where are ye goin? I am
hungry, lassie.”

The other man laughs heartily.

I try to pry my arm out of the painful grip.
I turn to lift my hand and to scratch his face. They must be
vampire, because if they were human I would have gotten away
without even trying.

The man grabs me around my waist as I turn
toward him and then with lightening speed he bends his head toward
me.

He stops for a moment and then he sniggers
amused, “Wha ave we ere?”

The other man asks excitedly, “Wha’s it?”

“She ain’ human.” The first man replies
perplexed.

The other man steps forward and I struggle
against the arms pinned around me. The man pushes his hand against
my chest, pushing against my breasts aggressively.

He looks up at the other man confused,
“She ain’ got no heartbeat but I can smell er.”

I try to get away from them and thoughts
of death flash through my mind. I wanted to see Callum again. I
wanted to spend forever with him.

The man holding me tightly to him laughs
meanly. “A bloody half-breed, this is. Betta to rid the earth o’
them.”

The other man jumps forward eagerly. “Me
first, me first.” The stench from him makes me gag
involuntarily.

The man holding me with a vice-grip to him
pushes the other one away with the palm of his hand. The little,
smelly man stumbles back. “I’m first, wait ye turn, eejit.”

I hear my scream of defiance echo into the
night, but then I feel the excruciating pain as his teeth sink into
my neck. He is standing in front of me and he has my hands gripped
in his behind my back. He pulls me toward him and his other hand
pushes my chin away from the exposed area.

As I feel him bite me, his teeth breaking
through my skin painfully, my knees go weak and then I am hanging
from him. A feeling of complete weakness overwhelms me. I feel a
strange thump, thump in my chest and I feel myself gasp for
air.

I am dying.

From a distance, I hear a voice call my name
and the man drops me to the ground. I hear the little one hiss, “I
ne’er go’ a turn.”

There is a slapping sound and then I hear
them
run
away.

I feel myself lifted and carried, and I feel
a darkness take me.

Faintly I hear Amanda shriek. I feel the arms
around me put me onto a bed gently and Amanda’s voice telling
everybody to leave the room.

Her hands are all over me, pulling the wet
clothes from me. I feel weird. My entire body is tingling. It feels
as if my body is shaking from the rhythm of my heart. It is the
strangest feeling, although it feels familiar. Previously I never
noticed my own heartbeat until it stopped, and for a time my body
felt unbelievably silent. I got used to that though, and now the
action of breathing and my thumping heartbeat seems loud in my
ears.