Vampire Eden (10 page)

Metal crashed upon metal, and a loud boom sounded when the helicopter fell stories below to the ground. Glancing up at the mirror, I saw my singed hair grow back before my very eyes, long and perfect. Right before Aoleon gripped the back of my head and slammed my face into the sink.

I reeled from the pain as she lifted my head up toward the mirror. My nose was turned at a crazy angle, smashed to the side. My skull caved in on the right side of my face. A grotesque figure stared back at me, one that looked like the melted face of a doll. "I giveth," Aoleon growled as she brought her face close to mine, "and I taketh away." She threw me into the sunken tub and the back of my head caved as it hit the marble tile. I kicked and thrashed but she remained atop of me, digging her claws into every inch of skin she could find.

A smoke alarm beeped in rapid succession and the sprinkler system switched on, raining water down upon us. Patrick jumped into the tub and pulled Aoleon away from me. Her hair hung wet around her shoulders and whipped him in the face as she turned upon him. "Run," he said as her hand closed around his neck.

"Slave," she spat at him. "I gave her the gift to make you loyal to me. But you are loyal to
her
. Now you will witness the extent of my wrath!" She picked me up, holding me fast in her strong arms as he chased after us, struggling to reason with her. I groped for the silver bow and arrow. It sat on the coffee table, still steaming with heat. The band nearly slipped though my fingers as she pulled me, but one long nail tugged the bow and the end of the arrow into the grip of my fist. The metal burned my fingers, but I was beyond feeling any pain.

Aoleon and I teetered on the edge of the shattered window as the gusts of wind took my breath away. The helicopter lay in a burning heap on top of a one-story building below, perhaps the part of the hotel that housed the casino or a restaurant. Sirens wailed in the distance as I took one last look at the dark outline of the mountains in the distance.

Aoleon turned back and shot Patrick a look of triumph as she held me over the edge, then shoved me. I grasped at empty air as I fell backward, watching Aoleon in her flowing garment as she flew past me, her mouth stretched into a smile with the full moon providing her with a gracious backlight. If she would be the last thing I would ever see in this life, I had never seen anything or anyone more beautiful than the portrait she made with the starry sky behind her. The bow and arrow danced in my hands, blown in every direction save for the one I struggled to aim it in, straight at Aoleon's figure which flew above me. I pulled the arrow back and let it fly. Her body crumpled as if she were a dove hit by a stone. She drifted out of my line of sight. "I got you," I warbled. "Damn you."

I fell through empty space, staring up at the darkness. In my last living breath, I sighed in the field of God's eye, begging forgiveness even though justification for all of my wicked actions flashed before my eyes. I felt the fire from the burning helicopter on the ground as the hairs on my back prickled with the sensation of heat and wind. My eyes shut as I prepared to feel my bones shatter.

A clutching embrace closed around me, lifting me high into the air. My eyes flew open and beheld a flapping black wing. Its feathers were as soft as down as they brushed my face. "Angel," I breathed. "Thank you."

"Don't thank me yet." I pulled my face back at the sound of Patrick's voice as we rose into the sky and over the tops of the buildings. "You see? Every time she bites me, a new power." I watched the moon and counted the stars as he whisked me through the air. We landed on top of the Tiki Towers building. The ceiling glowed with a brand-new white sheen, and the vents looked clean and unused.

He opened the door to the stairway and beckoned me inside. "We'll lie low here until the morning. We forgot the bow," he said in dismay.

I dropped Cupid's bow to the ground just before I collapsed into a heap. "Nah. I got her good."

Patrick stirred next to me as the sound of techno music flooded the emergency staircase. The metal divots on the landing left marks on my skin. My eyelids stuck together as I blinked the sleep out of them and stared at the light flooding in from a few small, square windows. Dust motes twirled inside the rays. I intertwined my fingers with his and turned over to look at him. "Tell me it was all a nightmare."

"Is the nightmare not better than a dream where you are alone?"

"You have a good point."

He leaned toward me, kissing me on the lips. "You look pale."

"Am I changing? Into an ugly hag?"

"No. Still beautiful."

"As when you met me?" I laughed. "Guess that means I'm an ugly old hag."

"You'll always be beautiful." My body ached as I picked myself up from the metal grate of the stair landing. "I thought vampires didn't feel anything. Like love. Pain. Discomfort. Thought life for a vampire was all one
zipidee-doo-da-day
. I'm tired. And starving. You think there are any rats to eat at the Tiki Towers?"

"Not quite yet. Unless you want to count the sub-prime loan officers. In this economy, I'm sure no one would mind if a few of them went missing."

"Do you love her? You said you loved her."

"I know. I didn't want her to hurt you." He stared at the wall, the corners of his mouth turned downward.

"Are you sure? I'll understand. She's beautiful. Like a goddess. I wouldn't hold it against you if you just left if she wasn't really dead..." A passionate kiss from his lips silenced my words.

"Stop talking," he said. "I'll never leave you. I could never live without you anymore." He wiped the corner of his eye and I hoped he had shed that tear from me and not Aoleon. "These last couple days have been the most exciting days of my life. I could do without a lot that's happened, but not without making love to you. Do you feel that way, too?"

"Yes." I laughed and caressed his cheek. "Mmm. You look good enough to eat. Joking."

"I know. For some reason, vamps can't eat zombies. They can nibble on us, sure. Drain our blood. But they can't kill us. I think we should head over to the Little Tyong Koy and fill you up with some of that blood soup. First, we need to bandage up your face."

My hands flew to my cheeks as I felt the dimpled caves and recesses and the smashed bridge of my nose. "Oh, no. What if I killed her and changed back? I thought vampires went back to normal in seconds."

"Not hungry vampires. Or half-breeds. You need energy to regenerate, same as sick humans."

"I can't go anywhere like this," I moaned, as I hid my face in my hands.

"Eden, I hate to break it down to you like this, but you walked around dressed in some really skimpy clothes with no shame for the last, what? Ten, twenty years? Sure, people are going to look at you funny in bandages now, but do you have any idea what they thought of you back then?"

"To hell with you."

"Not yet, sweetheart. Hang out right here. I'm going to ask the ravers for some gauze and tape."

I glanced around, scanning the room for any doors or windows I could crawl out of. "You’d best stay here until I get back."

"Bastard," I sobbed.

"I know. I got you into this in the first place and I'm going to get you out. Or follow you until the end of time until you do get out or we both die. Deal?"

"You should leave me." I sniffled as tears mingled with blood trickled down my cheeks and onto my knee. The bloody drops enticed me so much I instinctively leaned forward and licked my knee. I gripped my head with my hands, throwing back my head and wailing at the ceiling.
              "What good can I ever do you? You knew me as beautiful for only hours, and now look at me." Patrick turned away and stared at the wall. "Look at me! Stare at this for the rest of your life. Not only will I grow old quickly and stay old for a hundred years, but I will torment you with guilt from bringing me to those women. Why don't you go on being flesh bait for whoever's left and leave me alone!"

He gripped me by my shoulders. "Do you think they'll let you go so easily? They'll find you, heal you with drops of Aoleon's venom or their own, keep you alive to peddle the streets forever in search of their meals. I don't want that to happen to you. You're a good person. A kind, sweet person. I care about you too much now to let you go."

"Why?"

He sat down and placed his elbows on his knees. "Because we're in this together now. You're the only one who understands what it's like to put all of your effort toward something and watch it turn to dust. You're the only one who would sell your soul to make someone else happy, whether it be the demons in your head or the demons who surround you, who whisper to you with the voices of angels right before they stab you in the heart. I've heard the voices, too. And I didn't, until I became a creature of the night. Then they spoke to me. They told me to jump when I saved you from falling. They told me to let you kiss me before the vampire women emerged to consume you. And they want us to stay together, for whatever reason."

"Where are the voices from?" I swiped the back of my nose with my hand.

"I don't know. But I know Aoleon tries desperately to hear them, to decipher what they are saying. They cannot be heard. Only felt."

I ran my hands over my face again. The soft tissue of my face flattened and rose in haphazard ridges underneath my fingers. I shuddered as I thought of how I looked. "Get the gauze then, please."

"You'll stay?"

"Yeah."

*   *   *

Patrick pulled open the door of the Little Tyong Koy restaurant and I trailed behind him, my hand almost completely slack in his. I took a deep breath, my eyes heavy with weariness. Bright red artwork made of silk and tassels hung from the walls and a leafy-palmed plant in the corner sagged, its leaves mottled by a few brown spots. The smell of the soil permeated my nose and made me wish I could bury myself.

A boy with a bowl cut looked up from his task of sweeping the floors and gestured to a booth along the wall. His eyes rested upon me with concern shining inside the black pools of his pupils. I nodded as if to tell him I was fine, and he glanced at Patrick, who gently caressed my hand as he settled himself across from me. A wrinkled, portly woman came out from the restaurant's kitchen and barked at the boy in a foreign language. The bald spot on her head glistened from the sunlight filtering in through the windows. The boy hurriedly put away his broom and rushed to our tableside to drop off menus and take our order.

Patrick and I sat in silence as he continued to run his fingertips down the smooth webbing between my index finger and thumb. This tiny area seemed to be the only part of me that was not bruised, battered, and hideous. Our waiter dropped off two glasses of ice water and a pot of tea. "The blood soup make her better," he said. "I know."

The old woman barked at him again and he rushed away to do her bidding. "Guess gals who look like me come in all the time," I remarked.

"Vampire gals," Patrick replied. "There're no secrets in Vegas."

"But what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas."

"Unless you're a vampire." Patrick removed a book of matches from his pocket and withdrew one, slicing it across the tabletop. The match sparked and fizzled into a cloud of black smoke. "Then you spread it all around."

"No smoking in here," the old woman barked.

"Sorry," Patrick said as he tucked the matches back into his pocket.

I ran my hands over my face once again, feeling the scratchy, woven gauze soaked through and hardening with dried blood. My face maintained those ridges and bumps I knew made me look hideous. "Oh," I moaned. I buried my face into my hands and rested my forehead on the table. A dull, buzzing feeling like pain reverberated through my face and scalp. I began to cry. My body racked with sobs and shook as Patrick murmured words of consolation. I sniffled. Through my stuffed nose came the overpowering scent of strawberries.

"There, there, little one," Cupid's deep voice droned. I looked up. He sat before me as if he had magically appeared. His chin rested on one of his hands and his hair curled over his face in an auburn tousle, reminding of a picture of a solemn boy angel my mother had put up in the hallway of our trailer home when I was a child. "I must say I've seen much worse." He pulled a napkin out of a dispenser with a flair of his fat hand and placed it in front of me. "Well," he mused as he surveyed me, "perhaps not lately."

"Cupid," I sobbed. "God of love or whatever you are. All of this is your fault. You shot Patrick, causing him to run after a vampire who turned him into...whatever he is. His loyalty to her was the reason why I look like this. What good have you ever done for anyone?"

Cupid sighed. "That's why the vampire women call me the King of the Dead. They do not believe in anything their eyes cannot see, and their claws cannot touch. They only believe in what they can clutch, destroy, eat, hurt, and kill. Why, it's no wonder vampires thrive in Vegas, and no wonder I've hung up my bow. Love, my dear,
is
death. There is no greater aspect of life that hastens love. You think the monkeys and the primates could ever conceive of such thing as love unless they were pained by the death of all of those near them for generations, until finally we learned that love for the sake of loving was far better than regret for the sake of death? You are cross with me; you believe me to be the source of all your ills when I am the reason you still live. I am the reason you and Patrick are together."