Мишель Роуэн - Bitten & Smitten

“Who are you?” I moved as far away from him as the sofa would allow. My voice croaked as if I’d been asleep for a while. Which was strange, since I’d never dreamed that I was sleeping before.

“My name is Thierry de Bennicoeur,” he said.

“French.”

“Originally.”

“You don’t have an accent.”

“Not anymore.”

“And you’re a vampire.”

“Yes.”

“Where are we?”

“My house.”

He was a man of few words. I searched my mind for something else to say. If I stayed silent too long, I might start panicking again. I didn’t care if this was a dream; it was a weird one.

“Why were you trying to kill yourself?” I asked absently.

He stared at me for a moment but ignored the question. “How do you feel right now?”

“Like I went out drinking and a bus hit me. I want to go home.” I made a move to stand up, but the flashing pain in my head stopped me cold. Were you supposed to feel pain in a dream? Didn’t seem right.

“We need to take care of something first,” Thierry said.

“What?” I glanced at him and my eyes widened when I saw a sharp knife in his hand.

“What the hell are you planning on doing with that?”

He raised an eyebrow at my panicked tone. My eyes widened even more when I saw him drag the blade across his wrist. Holy shit! He was going to finish killing himself right in front of me. That was so sick. I felt so weak that all I could do was whimper as I saw blood flow from his cut. He held his wrist over the glass of water and let his blood drip into it. Then he produced a spoon and stirred the contents.

“If your first drink is not directly from your sire, then it’s best for it to be a little weak,” he explained.

I stared with disbelief at the diluted blood. Then I looked at his wrist. The wound was rapidly disappearing until there was no more than a small pink line where the cut had been.

“Drink.” He offered me the glass.

I waved it away. “I’d rather have a diet Coke, if you don’t mind.”

He placed the glass down on the shiny black coffee table and stood up. “Let me explain a few things to you, Sarah Dearly. Number one: Your sire didn’t finish making you a vampire before he was killed. The wound on your neck proves that. If he’d finished properly, it would be nearly healed by now. Number two: to finish the job, you need to ingest the blood of a full-strength vampire. Since I don’t see any other volunteers around, I figured it was up to me. So don’t be difficult.”

“I’m not drinking anybody’s blood,” I said firmly.

He shrugged. “Then you’ll die before the end of the night. There is a toxin in a vampire’s fangs that will infect its victim when the sire drinks deeply and fully of their blood. The toxin is what makes one a vampire. If your… date… had simply wanted a small taste of you, then it would be a moot point. However, by your symptoms, his intention was obviously to make you one of us. The toxin now in your body needs to be counteracted with this.” He indicated the glass of pink water. “Simple as that.”

I frowned hard and touched my neck. “But why would he do that? Bite me? I don’t want to be an evil, bloodsucking vampire.” I looked at him. “No offense intended.”

“Your experience is unfortunate, yes. Your sire didn’t follow the unwritten rules, which state that one does not bring over an unwilling fledgling. And vampires are not evil.”

“Yes, they are.”

“No, they are not. Not as a rule, anyhow. Some are, some aren’t. Just like humans. How one was as a human will govern their behavior when they become a vampire.”

I was still frowning. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

He sighed. “I don’t know why I even bothered trying to help you. It’s obvious you won’t last.”

“What do you mean I won’t last?” I was weak and scared and still almost completely convinced this was all just a bizarrely vivid dream, but I could still feel insulted.

He counted on his fingers. “Your sire is dead. You seem to attract hunters like a magnet. And you know absolutely nothing about vampires.”

I frowned at him and crossed my arms. “I’ll have you know I know loads about vampires. Anne Rice is one of my favorite authors.”

Thierry grimaced. “That will get you far.”

I felt a rise of anger chase away my fear. “I don’t need anybody’s help. I’m fine all by myself. I didn’t ask for you to bring me back to your”—I looked around at the sparse decor—“subterranean love nest, mister. And for another thing—”

White-hot pain exploded through my entire body. I clutched at the side of the couch and tore at the smooth leather with my French-manicured fingernails. “Oh, God. Oh, my God,”

I moaned in agony. “What’s happening to me?”

“You’re dying,” he said matter-of-factly. “But it should be over before dawn, so don’t worry.”

“Dying?” I yelped. I was starting to believe him. Another wave of pain hit me and I doubled over and slid down to the floor. “Help me,” I managed, fear slicing through me like a knife through butter. “Why are you just standing there? Do something!”

“I can’t do anything more.” His handsome face was blank. “I gave you the blood. I can’t drink it for you.”

The pink-tinged water sat innocently on the coffee table as I suffered next to it. After another burst of agony I grabbed the cold glass, brought it to my trembling lips, and glugged the whole thing down. The pain stopped immediately. It was like Gatorade-for-vampires. I lay on my back on Thierry’s hardwood floor and stared at the ceiling for a couple of minutes. Then I pushed myself into a sitting position and took in a long, deep breath while I tried to compose myself.

“More?” Thierry offered.

“No, I’m good.”

“You should go home now. It’ll be dawn before too long.”

I nodded with a firm shake of my head. “Can’t go out in the sun anymore, right? I’ll be burned to a crisp?”

He almost looked amused with me. “Is that from the school of Anne Rice? Sunlight is not good for vampires, correct. You’ll feel your strongest at night. During the day the sun will make you feel weaker and it will seem at times overbearingly bright, but I promise that you won’t burn up.”

“Really? Well, that’s good to know.”

“If it bothers you too much while you’re still new, I suggest you try to travel about the city using the underground tunnel system; what do they call it here in Toronto? The PATH?”

“And how long will I be considered new?”

“Fifty years or so.”

“Oh.” I thought about that. I’d be considered new till my seventy-eighth birthday. I’d be as old as Uncle Jim, who recently said a final good-bye to Canadian winters to move permanently down to Florida. “So it’s true that vampires live forever?”

He frowned. “We don’t die of the usual human ailments and we essentially stop aging from the point we are sired, if that’s what you mean.”

Interesting. Completely implausible, but very interesting.

“So how old are you?” I asked.

He took the empty glass away from me and returned it to the kitchen. Through the open doorway I could see him rinse it under the sink, and then place it neatly into a stainless-steel dishwasher before he answered me.

“Old.”

“How old?”

“Well over six hundred.”

My mouth dropped open. “Wow. I mean, you look good for six hundred. I would have thought you’d be all crusty and falling apart by that age. That’s amazing.”

He looked away with an odd expression on his handsome, noncrusty face. “Yes, amazing.” There was zero enthusiasm in his voice.

“I guess it’s just going to take me a little while to get used to being undead.”