Til Death (Immortal Memories) (3 page)

“What a gentleman,” she breathes, her fear forgotten as she wraps herself up in the romance of the encounter. The romance I’m being extra sure to highlight. I very carefully omit the fact that I didn’t go to the bakery out of choice, that it felt like, in fact, I had no choice but to obey his order. Her fear is just now subsiding, I don’t want to fan its flames.

I finish my story and Mia is completely calm. We chat a bit longer, our wine forgotten, both of us artfully dodging conversational landmines. She avoids all the ‘what now’ questions and I avoid any more talk about vampires. It’s one in the morning when she gets up, covering up a yawn with the back of her hand, and after a big hug, walks the few feet across the courtyard that takes her home.

I spring into action as soon as the door is closed and the chain is drawn, brewing a pot of coffee and sitting down at the table with a pen and paper. Now that I’m alone, it’s finally time to consider all the what-nows - all the things that I couldn’t bring myself to talk about with Mia. She’s got enough to worry about without adding my uncertain future to her list. I’m in the middle of scrawling notes on my budget - picking through the remains of the red velvet cupcake - when two precise knocks sound on my front door. I jump and cry out, my pen streaking across the paper. A quick scan of the apartment shows me the wine bottles Mia brought still out on the coffee table. Why would she have come back for those?

Just in case it isn’t Mia, I leave the chain on the door and pull it open just a crack, just enough to see who’s on the other side. I swear my heart stops. Twenty-one years without running into a vampire, without running into trouble. And now one’s standing on my doorstep.

Maybe Mia was right. Maybe this was just the beginning of trouble.

“How did you find me?” He mouths the words right along with me, his lips moving in time with mine. Suddenly, Mia’s fear doesn’t seem so out of place. My heart is skidding around in my chest, which is heaving with breath I can’t quite seem to catch. The vampire - there’s no doubt that’s what he is - breaths in, his nostril flaring, almost as if he’s scenting the air. Maybe he’s scenting me. I think of all those awful clichés from all those silly books, the lion and the lamb, the predator and the prey, the hawk circling the mouse. Suddenly, those analogies don’t feel so trite anymore.

That little cloud of confusion that ended up with me wasting time in someone else’s bakery worms its way into my thoughts again. “Please open the door and let me in.” His voice is stone and snow and the most important thing in the world.

I close the door and without a moment of hesitation, undo the chain and let the vampire into my home. That little flare of fear is gone and I’m fascinated by him. The perfect planes of his face. His long fingers. The strong straight shoulders that had hunched protectively over my hand while he pressed a kiss to my skin with his cold lips earlier this evening. I step closer.

He doesn’t wait for permission. He doesn’t even say a word. He sweeps me into his arms and I think, for just the tiniest fraction of a second, that he’s going to kiss me. I lean into him, molding my soft body against his hard, muscular one. I tilt my lips to meet his.

But he doesn’t kiss me. His mouth zooms past mine, his lips pulling back away from his teeth. His long, very white, very sharp teeth. And then he bites down into the soft flesh just below my jaw line. The pain is pointed and for some reason I think of that woman I met today, with her pointy shoes and pointy words. And then the vampire begins to drink. He sucks on my neck, drawing the blood out of me and I don’t have room left in my head to think about such trivial things as meetings and money and what-nows.

What are you going to do with your life, Rachel?

I don’t know. I think I won’t have to worry about that anymore.

My body goes cold and still and the room spins crazily around me. Tiny flashes of light careen through my vision only to give way to an ever darkening mist through which I view my world now. Strong arms hold me tight, anchoring me to my body even though I think it might feel so good to leave it all behind.

So this is how I’m going to die. After twenty-one years of vampires running loose in the city, of never causing me any trouble, I’m going to die in a vampire’s arms. Poor Mia. She’ll never be the same after this. She’ll probably devote herself to that awful church with that awful leader and spend the rest of her life hiding.

There’s a breath. I think it’s mine. My final one. My eyes are closed and everything is cold and warm and peaceful and I’m scared beyond explanation. I’m everything and I’m nothing and there’s an awful sensation of dropping, of falling slowly, no choice, no control. I want the release of letting go and I want to stay. I’m caught between desires.

There’s pressure against my mouth and something decidedly warm and sticky runs down both of my cheeks and tickles as it passes my jawline and catches in my hair. It feels like liquid fire running across my cool skin. For some reason, I part my lips and the viscous stuff fills my mouth and I swallow. The taste is coppery and tangy and somehow I feel like I can taste cold wind ripping through mountains and snow as it zips through trees.

It chases away the downward spiral of death and instead of the indecision of moments ago, I’m filled with one desire. Live. Drink and live and don’t let go. My eyes fly open. I’m lying on my apartment floor with the vampire’s bleeding wrist pressed to my mouth.

Dear God, I’m drinking his blood! It’s his blood in my mouth. And in my hair. And staining my cheeks and probably the carpet beneath me. And it’s the most amazing thing that’s ever happened to me.

I don’t ever want this to stop.

My hands fly up to his wrist and press it hard against my lips in case he tries to pull it away, to remove the source of sustenance and life and light and sound. It’s like being drunk and yet my mind is clear. More clear than I think it’s ever been. If this is what life has to offer, then I’ve never truly been alive.

“What’s your name?” The vampire’s words surprise me, all wrapped up in his musical voice, strong and deep, like the sound of rock in the mountain.

“Rachel.” And if his voice was strong and deep, then mine is warm and golden. Not golden like Mia’s, like sweetness and sunshine. Mine is golden like warm brown and mahogany. It’s the color of whisky in a glass, swirled and savored.

“You’ll feel different for a few days, Rachel.” It’s like his words are glinting in the air between us. I just want to touch them. “But it will fade. If tonight scared you, forget it. If it thrilled you, remember it in detail, but never, under any circumstances, tell anyone about it, even when you dream. Understand?”

I nod my understanding, a smile starting in my heart and working its way to my face. “Will I see you again?” I just want to hear his voice again.

He untangles himself from me and stands, reaching down to help to my feet. The feeling of his hands on mine is everything I hoped it would be, cold and strong and I want to run my fingers up his arms to his shoulders, to wrap myself up in him and smell the skin at his collarbones. I wonder. Would I smell the mountains, the way I heard them and tasted them? Stone and snow and sky?

He kisses my hand and there’s too much goodbye in the gesture. I want to beg him to stay with me, but before I can open my mouth to speak, I’m standing alone in my apartment. I smell the wine in my sink and the flour still on my counter in the kitchen.

My feet follow the scent almost of their own volition, my nostrils flaring as they take in flour and coffee and wine and the sickly sweet smell of frosting. The flour almost twinkles at me, each speck of the small white grain standing out vibrant and proud against the dated countertops and wood-colored laminate floor. I smear my hand through the mess, entranced.

And then there’s the tin filled with burnt cupcakes, left where they clattered onto the stove all those hours ago. If I’d believed in signs, I’d have thought it was a very bad one indeed. Isn’t that what I’d thought to myself as I pulled them all smoldering and ruined from the oven? So what does that mean about the day? About the night? About what just happened to me?

If tonight scared you, forget it.

Am I scared?

Hell no. I’m thrilled. I’m energized. I won’t forget this night for the rest of my life. My lips clench tight around the thought. I won’t tell anyone. I can’t. I couldn’t if I wanted to, somehow I know that, just like the way I bought more cupcakes even though I knew it’d be a waste of my precious time, no words would come if I decided to tell anyone about what happened to me here tonight.

But I don’t want to tell. This is my secret and mine alone.

I wander back into the living room. There’s a big bloodstain soaking into the carpet. So much for my security deposit.

I throw my head back and laugh and the sound twinkles in the corners of the room, falling to the floor like glitter. Oh, yes. I’ll remember this night. I fill a bucket with soapy water and smile a lunatic’s smile as I study the rainbow captured by the bubbles that congregate on the water’s surface. The stain fades from a deep maroon to a faint pink as I scrub and scrub, filling bucket upon bucket as the water goes from clear to red when I wring out my rags.

Meanwhile, I’m aware that I never got his name. When I think of him, when I remember his voice and his eyes and his hair and the way his strong body pushed against mine and made me feel both vulnerable and protected at the same time, I can only use the word
him
or
vampire
. I don’t have a name to let echo through my mind, to attach to my lips and whisper when I’m alone.

I replay the way the city lights shone in his hair earlier this evening. The way his shoulders sought to shield my hand from the rest of the world as he bent to kiss it before sending me on my way to the bakery down the street. And again, just now, the way his lips felt both cold and surprisingly soft - something that cold should be hard. Not supple. Unyielding. Not pliant.

Will I see you again?

I smile, remembering the way my voice sounded wrapped up in those words and lose myself in daydreams of the next time his hand is on mine. The next time I press my body to his. I’ll ask him his name and why I hear the mountains in his voice and taste it in his blood.

I freeze. My hands pause over the bucket, pink drops of water falling from the rag. Little plinks of sound echoing up at me as they hit the water in the bucket, causing tiny ripples to undulate out away from the point of impact. I take all this in while I realize that I may never see him again.

I asked and he didn’t answer.

He simply kissed my hand and left, admonishing me never to tell anyone about him. Well that just proves how much he has to learn about me. I’ll be quiet. I won’t tell a soul about what happened tonight. But I won’t accept never getting to see him again. Never getting a name to whisper to myself at night. Never getting a chance to feel like this again, alive for the first time, outside all that’s normal and expected.

I’ll find him. There’s no doubt in my mind that I’ll find him. Surely, his mind is as wrapped around me as mine is wrapped around him. He’ll be back. But if he isn’t, I’ll seek him out.

The pink spot on the carpet isn’t getting any lighter, but the sky is. There’s the faint glow of breaking dawn shining through the slats of my blinds. I feel amazing. Rested. Not like someone whose dreams were crushed just yesterday, someone who spent the entire night awake.

My budget is scattered all over the table. Those papers are filled with desperation and heartache. No bakery for me. Just a lifetime of temp jobs and corporate work stretching out in front of me. I’ve known it my whole life, I’m just not made for that kind of stuff. The day to day grind, the worry and the stress of making ends meet. An idea starts to form and I can’t quite look at it yet. But it makes me smile in the same way owning my own bakery makes me smile. It’s an idea that speaks of freedom. Rising above the tedium of everyday life so I can experience it to the fullest, the way we’re supposed to live, outside of all the bullshit of being a cog in a wheel.

The clock on my microwave tells me it’s seven in the morning. If the temp agency has a job for me, they’ll be calling soon. Something tells me they won’t be calling today. That’ll make a whole week without an income. My heart does that funny little stutter it always does when I think about being a college graduate without a job in sight and I dismiss the worries that follow close, pushing their way into my head. I’ve been given a gift and I’m going to take advantage of it. What did he say last night? I’ll feel different for a few days? Well if I only have a few days of feeling this amazing, then I’m going to take capitalize on each and every day I have left.

And if my vampire doesn’t materialize on my front doorstep again, then I’m going to hunt him down myself. And when I find him I’m going to ask him to make me a vampire, too.

When I slide all the papers I’d worked on last night into a tidy stack on my table, giving them a light tap to help line them up, it’s like I can feel all the worry I poured into them. There’s like a prickly gray aura of discomfort that surrounds them.

It’s really not like me to step out into the wide world without a plan, but that’s what I fully intend to do, at least for the next couple days. The budget can wait. Nothing’s going to change drastically if I don’t sit down right now and hammer out my what-nows. I still won’t have my dream job. Money will still be tight. My bills will still hang like a heavy rock on my back. Besides, if I can find that vampire and somehow manage to talk him into … what’s the word? Turning me? Well, after that, I won’t even need to worry about that kind of stuff. The thought of a vampire holding down a day job is just plain ridiculous. Right?

It’s eight o’clock and the temp agency hasn’t called. Despite my ever shrinking bank accounts, I’m kind of relieved - not super sure I could handle myself at all today. Every little thing distracts me. Even the cheap wood of my table captures my attention as I chase down a pattern in the painted grain.

My tummy rumbles, reminding me that regardless of the life changing events of last night, I’m still quite human and have had nothing but some wine, coffee, and a red velvet cupcake in the last fourteen hours or so. I step into my disaster of a kitchen, the remains of yesterday’s baked goods explosion still coating just about every imaginable surface, and lose myself in the process of cooking breakfast.

There’s the sizzle of sausage and cracking and tearing of releasing eggs from their shell. There’s the whisk against a bowl, a rhythmic tsk, tsk, tsk as I stir the pancake batter. There’s the clink and clatter of utensils mixing with the song I hum and the pad of my bare feet against the floor. Light streams through my windows, leaving long bright spots on the carpet of my living room. If yesterday was hurried and stressed and filled with everything that could possibly be wrong, then today is the polar opposite. I’m happy. Fulfilled in the simple pleasure of preparing food and watching the sun illuminate the world.

When I’m done, I realize there’s no way I can work my way through the feast in front of me, no matter how hungry I think I am. I cooked enough for at least three of me. I think Mia’s off today. She works awful shifts at the hospital. Impossibly long hours followed by a handful of days off. Pausing only to wrap a scarf around my throat, I dart through my door and across the courtyard in my pj’s and bare feet. The grass tickles my ankles and the sun tangles in my hair, warming my shoulders despite my breath hovering in front of my face in frozen puffs.

Mia opens her door, wiping sleep from her tired face, squinting out into the bright morning. “What are you doing?” Her sweet voice is gravelly from having just woken. Her eyes focus and she takes in my pj’s and bare feet, the scarf wound tight as if it made up for my bare shoulders. “For real,” she says with more concern than before. “What are you doing?”

“Come with me.” I grab her arm and pull her out the door.

She resists, calling my name, asking me to stop. “What’s wrong with you?” Concern has taken root in her voice. I stop pulling and smile brightly.

“I made us breakfast.”

Goosebumps are showing up on my arms and I shiver. It feels amazing. Mia scrunches up her face, clearly not sure if I’ve come unhinged or not. “Come on,” I say. “It’s getting cold.”

“The breakfast or your feet?” she asks as she slips on a pair of shoes and slides a robe over her shoulders.

My smile widens. “Both.”

We fly across the courtyard, hair and scarf and bathrobe streaming behind us. We’re like children at a slumber party, pretending to be super heroes. I feel the eyes of the crazy bird lady on us and am tempted to wave but resist the urge. She’ll have enough gossip ammunition with the current state of things without me adding to it.

My apartment smells amazing and Mia perks up as she downs her breakfast, little moans of appreciation all the compliment I need. “This is way better than the cold cereal I was gonna have.”

“Good. I’m glad.”

We chat about little things again, avoiding the big topics. I know Mia’s seen the stack of papers on the corner of the table and she has to know that I’m trying to work things out. Sorting through all the what-nows and coming up with that’s-whats.

“You know,” she says after we’ve cleaned up my kitchen and moved to the living room to work on our coffee. “I was thinking about you last night.”

She can’t make eye contact with me and I’m suddenly terrified of whatever is going to come out of her mouth next. “Oh ya?”

She kind of half laughs half coughs and I know for sure I’m not going to like what she says. “Ya. I was thinking,” her eyes bounce to mine and take in my wary expression. She sighs. “I was thinking that maybe you should call Max.”

“Mia!” I sigh heavily and plonk my mug onto the coffee table. “I’ve moved on from him. So should you.”

“But Rachel. He was good for you. He took good care of you. And he loved you. You know he did. He asked you to marry him …” My look is scathing enough to make Mia stop talking.

“And that’s the problem. I don’t want to get married.”

“You didn’t have to leave him completely over it. You could have told him no or not now or maybe. He’d have waited for you.”

That’s the thing. The thing Mia will never understand. I don’t believe in love. Not a love that lasts all the way til death do us part. Inevitably, the love is unequal or someone falls out of love and there’s nothing but a whole lot of hurt waiting at the end. I’m better off on my own, relying only on myself.

“You know I’m not into the whole white picket fence, two kids and a dog kind of thing.” She’s heard me say it before, but she doesn’t believe it and I don’t think she ever will.

“What’s so wrong with that?” She’s pleading with me. Wrapped up in her own desire for the very thing I won’t touch with a ten foot pole.

“It’s a mirage. An illusion. Trusting someone is only going to end up with me getting hurt. Or me hurting them. It’s just messy. I’m better on my own.” I sigh. Doesn’t matter what I say, she and I will always disagree on this topic.

It’s like she reads my mind. “I’m never going to understand this part of you.”

“Probably not.”

She knows I’m never going to agree with her, but her plan has spent the whole night in her head and I couldn’t stop her from telling me about it if I tried. “Thing is, with your bakery idea out the window,” my face must look stricken because she hurries on. “At least for now. I know you’ll find a way to make things work.” Mia smiles and hunches over her coffee. “But right now, things are looking a little … uncertain for you.”

“And just how does Max fit into this?”

“He loves you. He’ll take care of you. He’ll make all the things that are uncertain … certain. You’ll be safe.” There’s something hiding in her eyes. She’s leaving something left unsaid.

“What you’re saying is that you want me to use him, to take advantage of his love for me, so that I don’t have to worry about how I’m going to pay my bills.”

Her eyes widen in horror. “No! That’s not at all what I meant …” She trails off again and there’s that same look in her eyes. That look that means she’s not saying everything. “Although I guess now that I say it out loud, it does kind of sound like that.”

“It really does.”

Mia just wants what’s best for me and she thinks that’s Max. I don’t know how to get her to understand that just because what Max has to offer me would be best for
her,
that it’s not even close to being what’s best for me. But I’m really not in the mood to be mad at her. So I change the subject. “So, what do you have going on today?”

Eager to smooth things over Mia chirps away, telling me that basically, she has no plans other than heading down to the coffee shop to stare at the hot barista she’s longing for. Again, something I can’t quite read flashes through her eyes.

Is it the vampire blood that’s making me see it? Would I have noticed the subtle shift in her expression if I hadn’t been brought back to life by a vampire last night? And now it’s me trying to hide something from her as I carefully maintain a thoughtful expression as she giggles away about Mr. Sexy Coffee Man. I’m much better at hiding things than she is. Or she’s less perceptive. Maybe both. Either way, she doesn’t call me on it and I indulge myself in another little fantasy about my vampire.

Yes, mine.

He came to me. To my house. Hunted me out. And while he took something from me, stole my blood, my life force, he gave me a piece of himself in return. His blood. His life force. What was it I’d thought in the cab on the way to the meeting? Yesterday was the day that everything changes? I couldn’t have been more right.

“So, what do you think?” Mia’s looking at me expectantly. I replay her last few words in my head. She’d asked me if I wanted to go to the coffee house with her in a few hours.

“It’s not like I have anything else to do.”

Mia smiles but concern tightens the expression. “Awesome. I’m going to head home and get cleaned up.” What she really means is that she’s going to spend the rest of her morning trying to look gorgeous for Mr. Sexy Coffee Man.

“Does he have a name?” My question startles her. She pauses, confused, before she realizes that I know exactly what’s on her mind.

“No,” the word is mostly a giggle. Oh man. She’s got it bad. “He doesn’t wear a nametag and I can’t figure out how to ask.”

She’s still blushing when I close the door behind her and wander upstairs to do a little cleaning up of my own. The shower is a mix of tantalizing smells and sensations. The water slicing through my hair. The layers of coconut and vanilla in my shampoo. The soft film of suds shifting across my skin.

I realize I don’t know anything about vampires. Judging by all the propaganda, I don’t think anyone does. How much of all the folklore is real? Can they walk in the sun or will they burn up? Do they fall into a deep, death-like sleep during the day or do they wander around like the rest of us?

What I’m really trying to decipher is if there’s a chance I’ll run into my vampire today. Suddenly, I’m almost as concerned about my appearance as Mia was. The rest of my morning is devoured by hair and makeup and the creation of a plan that will help me find my vampire because, by now, I’m pretty certain that he has no intention of finding me. There was too much goodbye in his kiss, too much finality in his command:

If tonight scared you, forget it. If it thrilled you, remember it in detail, but never, under any circumstances, tell anyone about it, even when you dream. Understand?

There’s absolutely nothing in those words that promises his return and everything about it says that he never intends to see me again. Well, again, he’s gonna find that he got more than he bargained for when he tracked me down. Because last night thrilled me, that’s for sure. It’s not going to be enough to remember it in detail for the rest of my life, his face haunting my dreams and making all other men come up short. I need more nights like last night. More days like today. More of his blood making me as strong as I ever wanted to be. He’s my what-now.

I take a step back from the mirror and admire my handiwork. Not bad if I do say so myself. My plan to find my vampire on the other hand, well that’s a little shaky. All I can think to do is wait for evening, when darkness begins to fall, and head down to Club Diablo.

A year ago, Club Diablo was a trendy if overpriced nightclub located in the warehouse district downtown. Now it’s abandoned. Rumor has it that the owner was a vampire and he’s gone into hiding. It’s the only place I know to look. Like I said, it’s not the best plan, but it’s all I’ve got for now. I grab my bag and stuff a flashlight inside, just in case it’s dark when I get inside the club. I pull on a coat and wrap my scarf around my neck.

The day is magnificent. Blue skies dotted with huge fluffy clouds and the light has that warm, slanted quality that only happens during fall. I drink it in as I walk the few blocks down to the coffee shop, one part of my mind occupied with thinking about last night in all its glorious detail and the other half occupied with imagining Mia’s face when I walk her up to Mr. Sexy Coffee Man and ask his name.

I push through the doors to coffee house, a wicked smile playing across my face, ready to find Mia and drag her up to the counter. I’m not in the least bit ready to see what’s waiting for me. Those funny little looks she gave me this morning make total sense when I see who she’s got sitting with her at the table she’s picked near the window.

I consider turning around and walking out the door but she’s seen me. There’s an apology in her smile and I can tell she’s very nervous about my reaction. As she should be. I set my teeth and walk up to the table. Mia’s guest turns in his chair and I’m so not prepared to see the wash of emotions take over his face. With a sigh, I will a smile into existence and plop into the extra chair.

“Hello, Max.”