“Excuse me? Then why do I drink blood?”
“Colby, you’re Undead, but not a vampire.”
“Is this because I don’t have a license yet? Because I can’t officially call myself a vampire without it?”
“No—you aren’t fully Blooded, that’s why you can’t call yourself a vampire. You are too many generations removed from the original vampires to actually be one.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Your attacker, Charles Winthrop, is a fully Blooded vampire, but we estimate he is twelfth or thirteenth generation. We aren’t entirely sure, but we do know his offspring are not fully Blooded. Mongrels, if you will.”
I’m not a vampire?! I’m a half-blooded mongrel?! Oh, I don’t think so.
“So even though you have vampire characteristics, you are not a true vampire,” Thomas finished.
“I see. Tell me what characteristics a true vampire has.”
“Well, we can’t go in the sunlight; are burned by holy water; must feed daily; have superhuman strength, speed and hearing. Also, we have a finely tuned sense of smell, and we are immortal.”
“That’s it in a nutshell then?”
He smiled at my comment.
“Do half-bloods tend to have some of the characteristics?” I asked.
“Yes, they can have any combination but never at the same capacity of a Blooded vampire.”
“Probably gives you Blooded guys a feeling of real superiority over us poseurs, huh?” I said it teasingly, but he nodded as though I was serious.
“We are superior—and there are no other half-bloods. The license process ensures that no genetic mutants are created.”
Genetic mutants?! No one calls me a genetic mutant, no matter how hot they look in jeans!
“Seems like your vampire license process just doesn’t work,” replied the resentful genetic mutant half-blood.
He nodded in agreement.
“Occasionally a vampire goes rogue. They can’t handle the new system; it’s too much for them. They become unstable and want to start their own clan.”
“How new is this system?” I envisioned a process that was still so young, a lot of the vampires weren’t ready to adapt.
“Only about two hundred years old.”
Wow!
“How long have you been a vampire?”
“I was turned during the war.”
I didn’t want to sound stupid but if the law was considered young at 200 years old, then Thomas could be referring to any number of wars. Human history was jam-packed with them.
“Which war?”
“World War Two.”
So he was around a hundred years old, give or take a few. It wasn’t fair that gramps here still looked like a college boy and now that I knew his real age, I was still infatuated with him. Was I creepy or what?
I looked down at his hands. Sure enough, he was wearing a ring similar to Chuck’s but not nearly as old. I played dumb. “What’s that?”
“My license.” He held his hand out for me to see.
“Can I hold it?”
He smiled. “Sorry, it only comes off when I’m dead.”
“Eek,” I muttered, looking it over across the table. “Looks old.”
“Not really. I am relatively young. I didn’t have a license in the beginning either, you know.”
Now that was intriguing. “Really? Tell me about it.”
“I was stationed in Germany, in the war. We marched on Normandy and during the fighting I was separated from my unit. I was terrified, I’m not ashamed to tell you. Anyway, I was hiding until daylight so I could find my unit without getting shot by patrols when this German soldier is suddenly right next to me. I didn’t hear a thing. I thought for sure I was a goner. It was odd he didn’t reach for a weapon. No gun, no knife, nothing. I was struggling to get my gun when he told me to stop, and I did. I just looked at him and was filled with numbness. I couldn’t move. He told me to look at the stars and I did, then he fed upon me.”
I was transfixed by his story, remembering the sensation of numbness but also remembering that I was able to fight it off.
Thomas continued, “When he drank his fill, I was barely alive. I don’t know why he did it, but he opened his own vein and made me drink. He created me.”
“What happened then?” I was fully enraptured with his story, so parallel to my own.
“I passed out and woke up a couple hours later. The soldier was still with me. I had an unbearable thirst and he seemed to understand this. He took me to a place where I could feed.”
“Where was that?” I asked.
Thomas’s gaze hardened a little, but he answered my question. “He took me to a battleground where most of the men were already dead. I found one or two that were too far gone to save.”
“I’m so sorry, Thomas. That must have been terrible for you.”
For a moment he seemed lost in thought but shook himself out of it when I asked, “How did you finally get your license?”
“At the time, Germany had its own Princes and were adopting the license procedure, though it worked a little differently. I brought them the license of my Creator and I was given his license as my own.”
“So you had to kill him, right? That was the only way you could get his license.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t understand. Why did he do it? He had his license. Wasn’t he getting along just fine?”
Thomas sighed deeply. “My Creator had been a vampire for hundreds of years. That does something to you. He was very sick. You will learn that vampires don’t live in the human world but my Creator was in the army, living with other humans. It does something to the mind. Makes you dream impossible dreams.”
Okay, whatever that means. He didn’t seem to want to talk about it anymore so I changed the subject. “So why get a license at all? Why is it necessary?”
“It’s the law. It’s due process. Listen, Colby, there was a time when our kind was primal and savage. There were tribal feuds for power and many vampires lost their lives. Despite this, no one wanted to create more offspring for fear their children would usurp their power and kill them. Our kind was on the brink of extinction. It took the creation of the Tribunal to save us. Other areas began to adapt our notion and slowly we are rebuilding our race.”
“So the Tribunal is what? The vampire congress or something?”
“The Tribunal of any area consists of the three most powerful vampires, or Princes, to use an old-school term. They govern our area and keep the peace.”
“Why three and not just one?”
“Balance of power. When there is only one Prince, it is a monarchy. Two Princes means a complete deadlock if they don’t agree in all decisions; nothing gets accomplished. Three Princes gives checks and balances. It’s the best way to run things smoothly.”
It sounded a lot like American democracy to me, and look how easily that gets screwed up. “So what do I need to do to get my license?”
Thomas looked slightly uncomfortable with my question, which did nothing to help the growing unease that was making its way up my spine. He thought a moment before answering. “You must present a solid argument for why you should live in the vampire world. Define the value you bring to the community.”
“Would it help if I told them I didn’t plan to live in the vampire world? I mean, I’m going to live with my parents for now, then college, get a good job and go from there.”
Thomas shook his head at me. “I told you, vampires do not live in the human world. We have our own society.”
“You are mixing in the human world right now.” I pointed out the obvious.
“That is different. It is my job to seek out the unlicensed and investigate their existence. All vampires enter the human world to feed but they don’t live there. Do you see the difference?”
I guess I could see his point. It was like stopping at Mc-Donald’s to grab lunch. Everybody did it but nobody would say they lived there.
My thoughts must have shown on my face because Thomas reached over and touched my hand. I felt a warm and tingly sensation go up my arm and through my body all the way down to my toes. Aidan never made me feel like this.
“Let me help you, Colby. You are very strong for a half-blood. You possess more vampire traits than any I have investigated before. With my help, you could make a strong argument for a license in front of the Tribunal.”
I stared into his green eyes and might have agreed to anything, especially since he was holding my hand, but a tiny part of me wanted to know why. Why did he want to help me when he obviously had such strong feelings about not pissing in the gene pool, so to speak?
With all the willpower I possessed, I pulled my hand out of his and asked the obvious. “Why do you want to help me? I’m an abomination in your pure vampire eyes. Why not just stake me and call it a day?”
“Because you are different. You’re strong. There is something very special about you, Colby Blanchard. I don’t know what it is yet; I just know I want to help you.”
What girl in her right mind wouldn’t swoon at such a speech? If I’d had to stand up at that moment, I knew my legs wouldn’t support me. The man was positively dreamy. If it wasn’t the second time I’d heard such a speech in the span of a couple hours, I was sure I would have done anything Thomas asked me to do.
“I appreciate the offer, I really do. I just don’t see what’s in it for you.”
Thomas looked hurt and I immediately wanted to take it back.
“I don’t want to sound ungrateful but come on, Thomas—last time we talked your buddy wanted to rip my head off! My only other contact with vampires has been being attacked and thrown into a ravine. You guys aren’t exactly convincing me to put my life in your hands for safekeeping.”
“Let me take you to one of our places. You can see for yourself that not everyone is like Winthrop.”
Was Thomas the hottie vampire asking me out on a date? I pretended to give it some serious thought, when all the while my heart was beating at least three times per minute.
“Fair enough. I’ll go.”
Thomas wasted no time showing me his world. We left in his car, a ’69 Camaro that was obviously his pride and joy. He explained that he’d done most of the restoration himself; before the war he had worked in his father’s garage. He was handy with mechanical things and enjoyed discovering the beauty beneath neglected antiques. Not that a ’69 car was an antique, he was quick to point out, but still, it seemed pretty old to me.
I was sure I wasn’t dressed correctly for a night of vampire clubbing but Thomas assured me I looked fine and wouldn’t let me change. Men, they just don’t get it. He took us to Old Town, where most of the quaint little shops had long since closed for the night. Then I noticed a tiny neon sign above a plain black door between a consignment furniture store and an optical shop.
“Ink, huh?” I said, referring to the name of the establishment. He just winked at me and knocked on the door. A small window opened, much like in the old 1920s movies when Prohibition was in its heyday. Thomas held up his license and the door opened for us.
Inside was dark, with soft candlelight gracing tables, walls and chandeliers. It felt very much like an old English pub except a lot of the décor was surprisingly modern, with smooth lines and clutter-free design.
It was a nice combination of the Old World with the New and I felt comfortable there. Something I never expected.
We sat at a table close to a small stage. The place was half full on this Monday night but Thomas assured me it was standing room only around 3 A.M. I guess when you do all of your living, so to speak, during the evening, 3 A.M. was prime entertainment hour.
“So what happens here?” I asked, nodding in the direction of the stage.
“Plays, bands, dancing. All the usual stuff.”
“I notice there are no TVs. Guess all you guy vampires just aren’t into sports anymore.”
Thomas laughed at me, causing a few heads to turn in our direction. A buzzing of speculative conversation began around us. I thought I heard “mutant,” “abomination” and a few other unkind phrases but chose to tune them out. Luckily I hadn’t inherited the keen vampire hearing when I was changed and Thomas didn’t seem to notice as he answered.
“If you want to watch sports, then you go to Vic’s place.”
The vampire world wasn’t so different from the human world. There were date spots, sports bars and literature especially for bloodsuckers all within the confines of the human world. I was amazed we—that is to say, humans—didn’t know what was going on and shared that observation with Thomas.
“We are not so different,” he replied. “Our roots are in humanity. We can conform and blend when we must. The older vampires have a harder time blending and in turn they become more isolated.”
I thought of Great-Aunt Chloe who had seen wars, the invention of plastic revolutionize medicine and all the electronic gadgets she refused to have anything to do with. She didn’t leave her community much, but then she lived in Providence Point, where all her neighbors were around her age. They had tons of activities on campus as well as buses to take them everywhere but still, I felt a twinge of sadness for her. It must be hard watching all your friends die and rarely seeing babies and children. Sounded downright depressing. I sighed.
“What’s that for?”
“Just thinking how sad it must be for the older vampires. They have seen so many changes in the human world, they aren’t comfortable around people anymore, they’re all alone. They remember the days before licenses and must still be paranoid, so they don’t hang with their own kind much. Sounds very lonely.”
Thomas looked surprised and murmured, “You are an amazingly perceptive person.”
When he realized what he said, he turned a delightful shade of red and coughed to cover his embarrassment. If I wasn’t careful, I could easily fall for Thomas, despite our nearly massive age difference. The thought made me smile and Thomas took my hand across the table. So we sat there like that, just looking at each other, holding hands and listening to the soft murmur of voices around us.
My stomach felt like a million butterflies were twittering around in it because his hand felt so strong and fit so perfectly with mine.
It was funny. Holding Thomas’s hand felt more intimate than kissing any other boy, even Aidan, who I usually hooked up with for some light tonsil action at parties hoping he would ask me out. After all, I wanted a date for Homecoming and he still hadn’t asked me, so I thought a little convincing was in order. Now another week passed and I was still dateless.
“What are you thinking about with such intensity?” Thomas asked.
I felt myself blush. Hmm, I could hardly blurt out I was thinking how I’d tried to get another guy to ask me to Homecoming while I was holding hands with him, so I just smiled. “This whole vampire thing. It changes quite a lot for me.”
Thomas nodded gravely and slowly pulled his hand out of mine.
“We should use this time to educate you about vampire life.”
He was all business and the tender moment we shared was over. I kicked myself for ruining it with thoughts of Aidan.
“Okay. Where do you want to start?”
“Let’s start with feeding.”
I squirmed a little in my chair and my stomach growled. I was fighting the hunger and thought I could go another day or two without eating, but not if we were going to talk about it.
His eyebrow rose when he heard my stomach again. I widened my eyes in innocence, pretending it wasn’t me growling like a wolf.
“You should feed,” he said.
“Feed? Nah, I’m good.” My stomach growled again and this time I thought I saw the couple next to us look toward me in surprise.
“Colby …” Thomas was using his warning tone.
“Listen, Thomas, I’m not like you. I’m not going to go postal and start sucking on everyone here if I don’t feed right away. Sure, I could eat but I don’t need to feed right now.”
Thomas sighed heavily, in a way that made his feelings about my stubbornness clear, then raised his hands in defeat. “Okay.”
“Let’s just talk about something else, okay?” I kind of snapped at him but tried to soften the attack with a smile. All this talk about feeding was making me grumpy.
“Fine, let’s talk about your fangs.”
I narrowed my stare. “What about them?”
Thomas just looked at me until I finally confessed, “Okay, I had my canine teeth removed when I was twelve, for braces. My dad whipped up these fangs-to-go devices so I can feed, okay?”
Thomas nodded sagely, though I thought I saw a twinkle of amusement in his eye.
“Now I have a question. I want to know about the whole sunlight thing.”
“Okay. A vampire sleeps during the day and is active at night.”
“Duh. I want to know why.”
“We are no longer children of the sun. We are night creatures who belong to the darkness. The sun will burn a vampire instantly. It’s as simple as that.”
“What about sleeping during the day? Do you have to do that?”
“Most vampires sleep during the day but many will awaken for a few hours and stay in the dark, until they can leave the protection of their dens. But most prefer to sleep the entire day. It is safer that way.”
“Safer because of the sunlight?”
“Among other things.”
“What other things?”
“I don’t think we need to get into that now,” he hedged.
“So much for telling me about the vampire world. Guess you’re only going to tell me what you want me to know and not the full deal, huh?” Being hungry made it easy to dump on Thomas. Also, I was scared about feeding for the first time (I was trying to block out drinking my mom’s blood) but it was easier to be nasty than ask for help. Apparently, I had issues.
Thomas quietly looked at me. It wasn’t a stare meant to make me feel uncomfortable or contrite for my rude behavior. He truly looked at me. I returned his gaze without flinching or turning away, which was very hard to do. Thomas had a way of looking at me that made me wonder if he could read my mind.
“Let’s get out of here,” he said abruptly, standing up and practically lifting me out of the chair with him.
Before I could utter a word, we were back out on the street.
He didn’t take me to his car. Instead he held my hand and we walked together through Old Town. We came to a large park, complete with a skateboard area where several people were milling about. A few looked downright unsavory, but I didn’t feel afraid. Was it because Thomas was at my side or because I knew they couldn’t hurt me? I wasn’t sure. Either way, I barely spared them a glance as we strolled in the crisp evening, enjoying the unusually clear night and twinkling stars.
We sat down on a bench under a clump of trees that obscured the street light in that part of the park. It was the perfect place to apologize, if I could find the words.
“Put on your headgear,” Thomas ordered softly, looking over my shoulder.