Maggie Shayne - Twilight Phantasies

Roland watched suspiciously as Eric moved behind the bar, to the small built-in refrigerator. “What have you, a half dozen freshly killed virgins stored in that thing?”

Eric threw back his head and laughed, realizing just how long it had been since he’d done so. He withdrew a plastic bag from the refrigerator, and rummaged beneath the bar for glasses. When he handed the drink to Roland, he felt himself thoroughly perused.

“Is it the girl’s nightly cries that trouble you so?”

Eric blinked. “You’ve heard her, too?”

“I hear her cries when I look inside your mind, Eric. They are what brought me to you. Tell me what this is about.”

Eric sighed, and took a seat in a claw-footed, brocade cushioned chair near the fireplace. Few coals glowed in this hearth. He really ought to kindle it. Should some nosy human manage to scale the gate and breach the security systems, they might well notice that smoke spiraled from the chimney, but no fire warmed the grate.

Reading his thoughts, Roland set his glass aside. “I’ll do that. You simply talk.”

Eric sighed again. Where to begin? “I came to know of a child, right after you left last time. A beautiful girl, with raven curls and cherub’s cheeks and eyes like glossy bits of coal.”

“One of the Chosen?” Roland sat forward.

“Yes. She was one of those rare humans with a slight psychic connection to the undead, although, like most, she was completely unaware of it. I’ve found that there are ways of detecting the Chosen, aside from our natural awareness of them, you know.”

Roland looked around from where he’d hunkered before the hearth. “Really?”

Eric nodded. “All those humans who can be transformed, those we call Chosen, share a common ancestor. Prince Vlad the Impaler.” He glanced sharply at Roland. “Was he the first?”

Roland shook his head. “I know your love of science, Eric, but some things are better left alone. Go on with your story.”

Eric felt a ripple of exasperation at Roland’s tight-lipped stance on the subject. He swallowed his irritation and continued. “They also share a rare blood antigen. We all had it, as humans. It’s known as Belladonna. Only those with both these unlikely traits can become vampires. They are the Chosen.”

“Doesn’t seem like an earth-shattering discovery to me, Eric. We’ve always been able to sense the Chosen ones, instinctively.”

“But other humans haven’t. Some of them have now discovered the same things I have. DPI knows about it. They can pinpoint Chosen humans, and then watch them, and wait for one of us to approach. I believe that is precisely what has happened with Tamara.”

“Perhaps you need to back up a bit, old friend,” Roland said gently.

Eric pushed one hand through his black hair, lifting it from his shoulders and clenching a fist in the tangles. “I couldn’t stay away from her, Roland. God help me, I tried, but I couldn’t. Something in her tugged at me. I used to look in on her as she slept. You should’ve seen her then. Sooty lashes on her rosy cheeks, lips like a small pink bow.” He looked up, feeling absurdly defensive. “I never meant her harm, you know. How could I? I adored the child.”

Roland frowned. “This should not trouble you. It happens all the time, this unseen bond between our kind and the Chosen. Many was the night I peered in upon you as a boy. Rarely to find you asleep, though. Usually, you were awake and teasing your poor sister.”

Eric absorbed that information with dawning understanding. “You never told me. I’d thought you only came to me when I was in danger.”

“I’m sorry we haven’t discussed this matter before, Eric. It simply never came up. You only saw me those times you were in danger. There was little time for discretion when a coach was about to flatten you, or when I pulled you spluttering from the Channel.”

“Then you felt the same connection to me that I felt for her?”

“I felt a connection, yes. An urge to protect. I can’t say it’s the same because I haven’t experienced what you felt for the child. But, Eric, many young ones over the centuries have had a vampire as a guardian and never even known it. After all, we don’t go to them to harm, or transform, or even make contact. Only to watch over, and protect.”

Eric’s shoulders slumped forward, so great was his relief. He shook his head once and resumed his story. “I woke one night to sense her spirit fading. She was slipping away so steadily I was barely able to get to her in time.” The same pain he’d felt then swept over him now, and his voice went lower. “I found her in hospital, her tiny face whiter than the sheets tucked around her. Her lips…they were blue. I overheard a doctor telling her parents that she’d lost too much blood to survive, and that her type was so rare no donors had been located. He told them to prepare themselves. She was dying, Roland.”

Roland swore softly.

“So you see my dilemma. A child I’d come to love lay dying, and I knew I alone had the power to save her.”

“You didn’t transform her! Not a small child, Eric. She’d be better dead than to exist as we must. Her young mind could never grasp—”

“I didn’t transform her. I probably couldn’t if I’d tried. She hadn’t enough blood left to mingle with mine. I saw another option, though. I simply opened my vein and—”

“She drank from you?”

Eric closed his eyes. “As if she were dying of thirst. I suppose, in a manner, she was. Her vitality began to return at once. I was ecstatic.”

“You had right to be.” Roland grinned now. “You saved the child. I’ve never heard of anything like this happening before, Eric, but apparently, it worked.” He paused, regarding Eric intensely. “It did work, did it not? The child lives?”

Eric nodded. “Before I left her bedside, Roland, she opened her eyes and looked at me, and I swear to you, I felt her probing my mind. When I turned to go she gripped my hand in her doll-sized one and she whispered my name. ‘Eric,’ she said. ‘Don’t go just yet. Don’t leave me.”’

“My God.” Roland sank back onto the settee, blinking as if he were thunderstruck. “Did you stay?”

“I couldn’t refuse her. I stayed the night at her bedside, though I had to hide on the window ledge every time someone entered the room. When they discovered the improvement in her, the place was a madhouse for a time. But they soon saw that she would be fine, and decided to let the poor child rest.”

“And then?”

Eric smiled softly. “I held her on my lap. She stayed awake, though she needed to rest, and insisted I invent story upon story to tell her. She made me sing to her, Roland. I’d never sung to anyone in my existence. Yet the whole time she was inside my mind, reading my every thought. I couldn’t believe the strength of the connection between us. It was stronger even than the one between you and me.”

Roland nodded. “Our blood only mixed. Yours was nearly pure in her small body. It’s no wonder…What happened?”

“Toward dawn she fell asleep, and I left her. I felt it would only confuse the sweet child to have contact with one of us. I took myself as far away as I could, severed all contact with her. I refused even to think of seeing her again, until now. I thought the mental bond would weaken with time and distance. But it hasn’t. I’ve only been back in the western hemisphere a few months, and she calls to me every night. Something happened to her parents after I’d left her, Roland. I don’t know what, but she ended up in the custody of Daniel St. Claire.”

“He’s DPI!” Roland shot to his feet, stunned.

“So is she,” Eric muttered, dropping his forehead into his hand.