Zamani (4 page)

Chapter
Five

The carriage house was cozy
and decked out well. “You’re not the first one to stay here, although it has
been awhile.”
 
Lucy handed her the
keys once they were inside.

“I have a spare key, but I
will only use it for emergency situations. I promise to respect your privacy,
as long as you respect mine.” She picked out a blue key on the keychain. “This
is to the main house. You will be here for awhile, I suspect. You’ve got
cable.
 
If you feel up to eating
something, let me know.”

Alex couldn’t help but laugh
a bit. “I guess until I figure all of this out, I’m dependent on you, right
down to what I eat.”

Lucy nodded. “I’ll allow you
to feed from me.
 
I’ve got a network
of donor friends, too. I think you really should stay close to home for now,
rather than going on the hunt on your own. We have a system worked out and
you’ll soon train and learn how to hunt ethically and effectively.
 
There’s a lot left to talk about, and I
suspect if you watch the news, you’ll understand why I recommend you not let
yourself be seen right now until we can give you a bit of a makeover.”

She left Alex on her own
with a fresh pack of cigarettes and a fully stocked liquor cabinet, which Alex
took advantage of immediately.
 
She
poured a couple of fingers of bourbon neat and hit the power button on the TV
remote.
 
Her plan was to let the TV
be her company while she thought about what Lucy had told her.
 
She was looking on the small
bookshelf.
 
The books would come in
handy if she chose to believe Lucy’s story and stay.

A modern annotated copy of
Dracula
and a first edition, signed by
both Stoker and Van Helsing, sat side-by-side on the shelf. She opened the
first edition, breathing in the mustiness of the pages. Just as she traced Van
Helsing’s signature with her finger, she realized they were talking about her
on the mid-day news.

“. . .the brutal murder of a
young graduate student, Alexandria James.
 
Josh Peters reports.”

“Thanks, Joan. Last night,
police were called to a house in the Marigny after a call regarding the slaying
of Alexandria James.
 
Police arrived
on the scene to find one Wren Anderson and the deceased James. The other
residents of the house, James Kirby and Elizabeth Camp, detained Anderson. Anderson
has been taken into custody and is being held without bond. Police are not
releasing much information at this time, but they do say the deceased knew
Anderson and had a prior relationship with her.
 
There is also talk that Anderson may be
responsible for some other recent murders.”

She couldn’t watch more; she
clicked off the television. Alex downed the bourbon and filled the rocks glass
to the rim.
 
She put the first
edition back on the shelf and grabbed the annotated modern version.
 
She suspected she’d get bourbon and
ashes from her cigarettes on the book and she didn’t want to ruin a keepsake.

She spent the next few hours
re-reading the novel and taking notes and writing down questions for Lucy.
 
Shortly before five, she turned the TV
on again in hopes of catching any updates, but the five o’clock news had little
more information.
 
She realized,
too, that she had mainly wanted to see if they would say it again—that
she was dead—or if it had just been her imagination.

She took a break from the
novel and considered what Lucy told her earlier. She’d mentioned Olivia
Holmwood. Alex remembered feeling strangely drawn to Olivia, but she’d not
given much thought beyond it being a normal student-teacher crush.
 
Olivia was so unlike the other
professors in the department. Alex had simply attributed her fascination to
Olivia’s attractiveness and uniqueness.
 
While Alex respected the faculty in her program, they didn’t really turn
her on as most of them were middle-aged white guys who were way too into their
own research to pay attention to graduate students.
 
Tim Clark had been different, and there
were some exceptions among adjunct faculty like Mike Courtland, but most of the
professors in the graduate program could definitely be described as stodgy or
at the very least as self-absorbed.

Not Olivia, though.
 
She came to UNO from some other school
after Tim Clark died during Mardi Gras. Alex took her
Reading the Vampire
course mainly because she was signed up for Tim’s class and decided to stay
with the schedule she had.
 
Besides,
she reasoned the course would be a fun one.

She’d been surprised at how
much she enjoyed it.
 
The course
evolved into a research interest for her, once Olivia--Dr. Holmwood--hired her
to do research into film representations of female vampires.
 
Her research led to her arranging movie
nights at The Ruby, the lesbian bar where her girlfriend Liz tended bar.
 
The movies were a big hit with the
patrons and showings led to more business for the bar.

When they’d read
Dracula
in class, Alex paid close
attention to the few mentions of the “weird sisters.”
 
Stoker spent little time on them. They
were only briefly mentioned as temptation for Harker and later as sirens for
Mina.
 
She did remember the killing
of the female vampires as the only kill scene where Van Helsing was alone, unaccompanied
by any other hunters.
 
She opened
the annotated version up and reread the scene to be sure. The novel clearly
eroticized the sleeping female vampires, and the hesitation in Van Helsing’s
voice was clear:

“Then I braced myself again to my horrid task,
and found by wrenching away tomb-tops one other of the sisters, the other dark
one.
 
I dared not pause to look on
her as I had on her sister, lest once more I should begin to be enthrall; but I
go on searching until, presently, I find in a high great tomb as if made to one
much beloved that other fair sister which, like Jonathan I had seen to gather
herself out of the atoms of the mist.
 
She was so fair to look on, so radiantly beautiful, so exquisitely
voluptuous, that the very instinct of man in me, which calls some of my sex to
love and to protect one of hers, made my head whirl with new emotion.”

She read the passage
multiple times; if Lucy was right and Dracula had a daughter, the special tomb
and the power to enthrall certainly made sense.
 
And Olivia was certainly beautiful to
the point of enthralling.

She put the book down and
thought back to the films she’d watched; many of them gave more attention to
the three “weird sisters” but she couldn’t remember seeing any indication in
any films that the women were related to Dracula. Most film representations
focused on how they were likely his brides. A film she hadn’t watched before
she was killed she had put in her cart on Amazon to purchase and show at The
Ruby for movie night.
 
Lucy had a
laptop in the carriage house that she told Alex to use, and it didn’t take long
for Alex to access her shopping cart. She hoped that she wouldn’t get in
trouble for using the account; she reasoned that she and Liz shared it, so if
anyone was curious about it being accessed, they would probably assume Liz was
the one who logged in.

The 1936 film was titled
Dracula’s
Daughter
.
 
The plot picked up
where the much better-known Bela Lugosi film left off--with Van Helsing having
defeated Dracula. In this film, he faced murder charges. Alex was mesmerized by
Gloria Holden’s performance as the Hungarian Countess Marya Zeleska.
 
While she didn’t really look a lot like
Olivia, she carried herself in much the same way and commanded attention.
 
Alex watched as the Countess struggled
with her desire to be free of her vampirism after her father’s death.
  
When she was unsuccessful at
freeing herself from the curse, she then embraced her darkness and tried to use
it to manipulate her Psychiatrist, played by Otto Kruger. Her goal was to
convince him to run away with her so they could live together forever.
 
Like all good monster films from the
period, though, good won out over evil and the Countess was slain at the end
while Dr. Garth and his beloved assistant made it out safe and sound,
presumably to live happily for a normal amount of time rather than for all of
eternity.

Alex wondered if there was
any similarity between the film and Olivia’s earlier life.
 
She certainly hadn’t seemed evil to Alex
before; in fact she’d been quite polite and seemed to care about Alex’s
happiness and comfort. The spot as the research assistant had been a cash-per-hour
job and was a good help to her.
 
She’d always done well tending bar, but she’d felt like she was actually
accomplishing something working for Olivia.
 
But, knowing now that even the most
learned hunters like Van Helsing could be enthralled and mesmerized by her, she
wondered if Olivia had truly been watching out for her as a student or if there
had been bigger plans for her in Olivia’s life.

But how were Olivia and Wren
connected?
 
She had no way of
knowing.
 
She couldn’t just call up
Wren and ask her.
 
After all, she
was dead and Wren was in jail for her murder.

Thinking of Wren made her
feel pangs of guilt again; Liz didn’t deserve any of this, she realized.
 
She and Liz were happy, and when Wren
began making advances toward her, Alex hadn’t taken them seriously.
 
As exes, the two of them remained close,
and Alex simply wrote off Wren’s advances as her way of dealing with her recent
break up with Sienna. Wren’s behavior since that break up had been
erratic.
 
Before Sienna left New
Orleans, Wren never really dated fellow dancers.
 
She’d certainly not taken her act
outside of the club. But after the break up, Wren started sleeping with her
dance partners and bringing them into The Ruby after her shifts for after work
dance parties. The owner of the bar, Sandy, didn’t raise a fuss because their
antics brought in new customers and helped ensure some of the regular patrons
stuck around later, spending more money on drinks as they waited for Wren and
her partner to show up and put on a free show.

As she thought back to
Wren’s behavior, Alex realized that her response to Wren had changed during
that time, too. Not only did she find the show Wren put on tantalizing, but she
also realized that she hadn’t even suggested to Wren that she stop it. Wren had
picked up on Alex’s rekindled lust for her, and she’d made advances.
 
Alex didn’t more forcefully reject Wren,
she now realized, because she wanted Wren to want her again. More importantly,
she’d stopped thinking about how her actions would hurt Liz.

She crawled into bed and
threw the covers over her head. It was too overwhelming to her to figure out
now; she couldn’t tell whether she truly had wanted Wren’s attention or if she
was drawn to her because of some vampiric mesmerism.
  
Either way, she’d failed Liz and
now she would probably never get a chance to apologize.

Chapter
Six

“It’s important that you
feed regularly, even if it is just a little at a time.”
 
Lucy was in the carriage house, rolling
up her sleeve and readying to make the cut.

The initial shock and the
compliance that came with it were starting to wear off for Alex.
 
“Does it really have to be such a
physical thing, Lucy?
 
Can’t you
just bring me raw meat or something? Maybe knock over a blood bank?” She was
only partially joking.

Lucy shook her head. “It’s
important for now that you get good quality human blood.
 
The part about Renfield going bonkers
from eating spiders and mice is real. Especially now that you are only newly
turned and because you are getting so little at each feeding, it would be too
risky for you to feed on blood from a dead animal or that has been stored.”

Lucy offered her wrist, and
for the first time since she woke, Alex resisted.
 
“If we keep the hunger at bay, you won’t
get desperate.
 
Trust me, it’s
fortunate I found you so soon after you were turned. Had you woken up
unattended and starving, you would have killed someone.”

Alex shook her head. “I’m
not a killer.”

Lucy chuckled a little.
“Let’s keep it that way. Despite what you believe, your survival instinct is
stronger than your rationality. Why do you think you fed in the morgue in the
first place?”

Alex thought back to that
moment and realized that Lucy was right. Her reptile brain kicked in; she
didn’t questioned what she was doing or why. She’d had no choice but to feed.

“Wren wasn’t a killer
either, until she was turned and left untrained.
 
I’ve been careful with you, Alex, to
ensure that you learn the safest way to feed so that no one is harmed.
 
Olivia likely wanted Wren to always be
on the edge of satiety.
 
It’s easier
to control her that way.”

The cut on Lucy’s arm was
disappearing, and before it closed completely, Alex sighed and pressed her lips
there and fed.

Lucy left Alex a copy of the
Times Picayune
and went back to her
own kitchen.
 
She wasn’t surprised a
few minutes later when Alex walked in the kitchen door, unannounced and without
knocking.
 
She’d seen her obituary.

“We have to find some way
for me to attend.” Alex blurted the words out as she stormed in the door. Lucy
laughed.
 
“That’s a bit Huck Finn of
you, don’t you think?
 
According to
your wishes, your remains were cremated, but that doesn’t mean that your
girlfriend and family won’t notice if you happen to show up.”

Alex nodded.
 
“We’ll just have to make sure I don’t
look like myself.
 
I’ve already made
a list of what I need.”
 
She handed Lucy
the list.
 
“I’ll sit in the back of
the church.
 
I promise to
behave.
 
You have to let me go, and
you have to come with me.”

Lucy looked over the
list.
 
They had a good week to make her
over, as the service was on October 26th.
 
Lucy finally shrugged and agreed to try the idea.
 
“If we are approached, leave the talking
to me, though.
 
And, if I say we
need to make tracks, you don’t get to argue with me about it.” Alex agreed.

Lucy pocketed the list and
sat down on the sofa.
 
“I also need
to talk to you about your needs.
 
You were nearly killed by Wren.
 
I suspect that at some point in the process you must have ingested some
of her blood; either she meant to turn you or in the melee perhaps you bit her
lip or something and that is how you were turned.” She paused, wondering if
Alex had any memory of an exchange.
 
She didn’t seem to, so Lucy continued.
 
“Unless you had contact with another
vampire before the attack.
 
If you
were already turned prior to the attack that would mean Wren didn’t turn you.”

Alex frowned.
 
“Do you think Olivia turned me without
my knowing?”

Lucy shook her head.
 
“No, I don’t think that’s the case; if
it were, she would have claimed you before any police showed up. More than
likely the two of you would have taken Wren out. That would have been far
easier than letting Wren go down for your murder. For now, I think we should
assume Wren turned you--at least until we know differently.”
 
She stubbed out her cigarette.
 
“But, because you were so drained, to
gain your full strength and to make the kind of progress you should make so you
can get on with your life, you need more than I can give you.
 
Probably even more than donors can give
you, Alex.”
 
She paused and watched
Alex’s face.

As it dawned on Alex what
Lucy was suggesting, Alex frowned and shook her head. “I don’t think I can,
Lucy.
 
Feeding on you has been odd
enough.
 
I’m not even sure how to go
about picking someone who is unaware.”

Lucy nodded. “I know you’re in
new territory here, Alex. But as you gain strength, you will find it impossible
to resist the urge to hunt, just as you found it impossible to resist feeding
from me in the morgue. I just want you to be prepared and to know that I will
not judge you.” She paused.
 
“I also
need to warn you so you’ll be mindful of this and not take out a donor--me or
someone else--in a moment of frenzy.
 
When you are ready, I know who can serve as a mentor for you--a
teacher.
 
I didn’t want to move
things too quickly for you, but I can’t teach you all you need to know.”

Alex sighed in relief.
 
“I would appreciate the help.
 
But, let’s get past my memorial service
first, if we can. I want to focus on just getting through that first, and then
you can turn me over to someone else.”

The plan Alex devised for
her disguise was to go in drag.
 
On
her list, she had requested hair clippers, hair dye, and a suit.
 
She and Lucy sat down together and
ordered what they needed for the transformation. Being able to buy everything
online certainly made things easier.
 

By the day of the memorial
service, Alex was transformed.
 
She’d shorn her shoulder length brunette hair close to the back of her
head, leaving just enough length at the top and sides to keep it from being a
crew cut.
 
She left bangs that she
could sweep to one side.
 
Lucy
helped her bleach it.
 
They’d
decided to go blonde in part because it was a stark contrast and in part
because it would not seem odd that Alex didn’t have five-o’clock shadow or any
sign of facial hair if her hair were platinum.

She’d learned almost
immediately that the idea that vampires couldn’t see themselves in mirrors was
nothing more than a myth.
 
Once
she’d cut and bleached her hair, though, she didn’t see herself in her
reflection. While she was relieved because she knew the disguise would be
successful, she felt a pang of sadness at having lost herself.
 
It was one thing to make a change in
your identity because you needed to for yourself; it was quite another to have
to become someone else because of a choice you weren’t given.

“I obviously can’t use my
name anymore.
 
I have to decide who
I am, Lucy.
 
That’s part of what
this has been about; I don’t like that this choice was made for me. I didn’t
want to meet a teacher until I had a new identity I could claim as my
own.”
 
Alex sat down and took a swig
off the beer that Lucy had opened for her to toast her new look. “A haircut and
dye job is one thing, but I have to be able to move about in the world.”

Lucy nodded. “I can only
imagine how you feel.
 
For me, the
choice was mine; I felt as if becoming a donor was a natural
progression--something I was fated for.
 
So, I’ve never felt the need to change my name or take a new one, other
than shortening it to something more contemporary and American sounding.”
 
She thought for a moment. “You know,
there is a nickname for Alexander that is gender neutral.
 
What about ‘Sasha’?”

Alex smiled.
 
She liked it.
 
“Sasha.
 
What about Sasha West?
 
Is that too familiar to take your
name?
 
You did, after all, find me.”

Lucy gave her blessing and
Sasha West was born.