Sophie blinked, a surreal feeling of calm taking over her.
“Do you want some water? Should I call an ambulance? Or your mother?” Jesse asked.
She sat up slowly, dizzy and feeling like her stomach was planning an emergency exit through her mouth. “No. I don’t want water.”
Jesse let his hands fall slowly back into his lap. “I can help you get back to your room,” he murmured, not meeting her eyes.
“I’m not going anywhere until you tell me the whole story.”
Head still bowed, his eyes managed to look up and meet hers. “You want to know how I came to be like this, or how I’m living like this now?”
“Both,” she decided.
He wanted to ask why, but he kept his mouth shut. Every second she was with him meant another chance.
“IT STARTED WITH A CHEAPhouse.” Jesse now sat on a chair across from the battered sofa, fingers laced and eyes boring ahole through them. “In 1985, my dad got a job in New York and he wanted a nice house in a small town. He loved a bargain. My mom liked everything to be picture-perfect. They heard about Pine Ridge. They fell in love with it because it looked like a perfect little suburb. There were new single-family homes going up right near the high school— for cheap.”
“Real estate deals equal death by monster?” Sophie asked, voice woozy.
“Pine Ridge is built on three intersecting Ley Lines. Do you know what those are?” Jesse asked, raising his head.
“Not really.”
“Lines that exist throughout our planet and probably throughout the universe. They are channels for mystical energy. If you have three that intersect, it’s very rare. And it can be very bad.”
A shiver ran up her spine. “Why?”
“Because, whether or not you believe me, there are demons and monsters in this world, and they feed from supernatural well-springs, like Ley Lines. So, if you have beings coming to feed on energy, bad or good, they leave a mark in your town. Good beings can help you. Bad beings...” Jesse shrugged suddenly. “I graduated from high school with a great group of friends. I was finishing my first year of college in May.”
“Of 1985?”
“No, 1989. After living in Pine Ridge and going to the local high school, I knew there were weird things in our town. I didn’t talk about them with my parents and my parents didn’t talk about them with me. I think they might have suspected there were gangs or drug dealers somewhere in town because sometimes people would just disappear. I don’t think they thought there were werewolves and vampires. Anyway, I went to the NYU Pine Ridge campus. I went to a party. I met a pretty girl.”
Sophie squirmed as he did, both suddenly uncomfortable.
“I wasn’t... I was a good kid, who didn’t party too hard or drink too much. I dated a few girls in high school, but we didn’t ‘go all the way.’ I thought this girl, this really beautiful, sexy girl wanted me to come back with her after the party. I’d never seen her on campus or in town. She was a ‘tourist.’”
“Ley Line kinda tourist?” Sophie asked, heart speeding up.
“You catch on quick. She said her name was Becca, but who knows. We walked outside. We kissed. She put her hand on my belt and I remember feeling something slice into my neck. I didn’t even realize what was happening.”
“Why didn’t you die?”Why am I asking this guy questions? This is ridiculous. Ludicrous. Insane.
“Oh, she didn’t save me. She wanted to drain me and get going. But there are people in Pine Ridge who know about evil beings. You’d be surprised at how many ordinary people are well-versed in extraordinary things. I guess if you live there long enough, you’ll develop some unusual expertise.” Jesse blinked suddenly. “There are good vampires in the world. Not a lot, but a few. Some of them live in Pine Ridge. One of them is named Mr. Minegold. Fascinating dude, and I’ll tell you more about him later— if you’re still talking to me. Anyway, Mr. Minegold found ‘Becca’ and finished her off. Mr. Minegold found me, too. He told me I was dying and I could drink something to keep me alive. I was almost twenty. I didn’t wanna die. So I drank.”
“What was it? A potion?”
“Kinda. Blood from a vampire. The demonic essence that makes a vampire is blood-borne. I drank what he put up to my lips, which turned out to be his own blood, from his own arm. He saved my life. He took me back to my parents’ house and explained what happened. My dad threatened to call the cops and tried to hit him with a beer bottle,” Jesse sniffed insuddenly. “My mom told him that was no way to treat the man that saved their son.”
Sophie looked to the side of the couch, where a graduation picture still rested next to the television. “What happened after that night?”
“Well... I quit my summer job at the pool, too sunny. My dad crawled inside a bottle for a couple of years until I started living like a ‘normal person’. I took night classes and correspondence courses to get my first degree in business. I got a third shift management job at the hospital in Pine Ridge. I hung out with my friends at night and found out a couple of people in Pine Ridge run a ‘neighborhood watch.’ I joined. We keep an eye on the visitors and make sure the people who settle in our town aren’t going to eat the innocent bystanders. And that’s what I did until my dad passed away a couple of years ago.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Sophie exclaimed, involuntarily squeezing his hand.
“It’s okay. It’s hard, but... My dad took it harder than my mom, believe it or not. To her, being ‘disadvantaged’ as she calls it, was a challenge to work around. To my dad, it was a dire, deadly secret. He was worried I’d end up in a zoo or dead or... I don’t know what. He hated that I was like this. I need to drink blood, but not a lot. Vampires need way fewer calories, it’s mainly the life force in the blood, and you can get that even from animal blood, even animal blood that was collected weeks ago and frozen.” He suddenly got up and moved to the mini-fridge in the kitchenette, opening the door and showing her a top shelf full of quart containers, all dated and labeled. He lifted a few out and read the labels before sliding them back into place.“Pork. Beef. Lamb. Venison. The butcher in Pine Ridge probably sells as much in blood as he does in New York Strip.” He smiled slightly.
“Wait. You’re... how old?” Sophie shook her head. The pieces of information were filtering in in random order.
